Abdominal fat distribution and serum lipids in patients with and without coronary heart disease

To investigate the association between obesity indices, abdominal fat distribution, and lipid profile in patients with stable angina (SA).

Body weight, height, waist circumference (WC), body mass index (BMI), and waist /height ratio (WHtR) of 123 patients with SA who underwent coronary angiography were measured. Fasting blood samples were taken to measure the levels of fasting blood sugar (FBS), total cholesterol (TC), low- and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C, HDL-C), apolipoproteins A and B (apo A and apo B), and triglycerides (TG). According to angiography reports, the participants were divided into patients with or without coronary heart disease (CHD). All patients underwent an abdominal computerized tomography (CT) scan to measure the visceral, superficial, and deep subcutaneous fat.

The mean ages of the patients with CHD (n = 73) and without CHD (n = 50) were 50.5 ± 7.6 and 53.7 ± 7.6 years, respectively (P = 0.03).  The patients with CHD had significantly higher levels of TC, TG, and superficial subcutaneous fat, while the patients without CHD had higher levels of apo A (P ≤ 0.05). Multivariate analyses showed a significant association of visceral fat with TC, LDL-C, TG, and apo B, in the patients without CHD, while significant inverse associations were found between WC and HDL-C, WHtR, and apo A as well as visceral fat and LDL-C in the patients with CHD.

Among anthropometrics and imaging indices of obesity, WC and WHtR have shown better association between central obesity with dyslipidemia in the patients with CHD, while CT-measured visceral adipose tissue area was the best correlate of dyslipidemia in the patients without CHD.