Hormonal
Visceral adipose tissue (VAT) is a stronger predictor of fasting insulin than total adiposity (BMI or percent fat) in young adults with normal glucose tolerance, except in lean black men.
For young adults with normal blood sugar, where you carry fat matters more for insulin health than how much you weigh. Measuring your waist circumference is a simple, effective way to assess metabolic risk, especially if you are white or female. However, for lean black men, standard adiposity measures may not accurately reflect insulin sensitivity, suggesting other factors or measurement limitations may be at play.
In regression models with total adiposity measures (body mass index or dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry-measured percent fat), visceral AT (measured as a cross-sectional area in cm2) was generally a stronger predictor of insulin than overall adiposity in all race/gender groups (partial correlation coefficients ranging from 0.31 to 0.47) except for black men, in whom the associations were nonsignificant.
Why this rating
Observational study with a well-defined population (young, NGT) and robust statistical controls, but limited generalizability to obese or diabetic populations.
Source
Association of Total and Central Adiposity Measures with Fasting Insulin in a Biracial Population of Young Adults with Normal Glucose Tolerance: the CARDIA Study
Stephen Sidney et al. · Obesity Research · 1999
DOI 10.1002/j.1550-8528.1999.tb00405.x
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