No abstract available.
Fatty Liver/*complications ; Female ; Humans ; Intra-Abdominal Fat/*anatomy & histology ; Male ; Metabolic Syndrome X/*etiology

The principal objective of this study was to determine whether visceral fat or liver fat is a more relevant risk factor for metabolic syndrome. A total of 98 subjects aged 18-65 yr, who visited a health promotion center in a university hospital, were enrolled in this study. Metabolic syndrome was diagnosed based on the modified National Cholesterol Education Program's Adult Treatment Panel III report (NCEP-ATPIII) criteria. We defined the visceral obesity as a visceral fat area of > or = 100 cm2 which was acquired by CT at the L4-5 level. To evaluate fatty liver, we applied a liver-to-spleen attenuation ratio < or = 1.1 as measured by CT at the T12 level. We employed binary logistic regression models that used the presence or absence of metabolic syndrome as a dependent variable and age, sex, and the presence or absence of visceral obesity and fatty liver as independent variables. Visceral obesity was not found to be an independent variable as a risk factor of metabolic syndrome (odds ratio 2.7; 95% confidence interval 0.55-13.30), but fatty liver was found to be significant in this model (odds ratio 71.3; 95% CI 13.04-389.53). Our study suggests that liver fat may be a more important risk factor than visceral fat in terms of its association with metabolic syndrome.
Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Blood Pressure ; Body Composition ; Demography ; Fatty Liver/*complications ; Female ; Humans ; Intra-Abdominal Fat/*anatomy & histology/radiography ; Liver/anatomy & histology/radiography ; Logistic Models ; Male ; Metabolic Syndrome X/diagnosis/epidemiology/*etiology ; Middle Aged ; Odds Ratio ; Risk Factors ; Sex Factors ; Spleen/anatomy & histology/radiography ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed ; Young Adult