The correlation between pancreatic steatosis and metabolic syndrome in a Chinese population

Type 2 diabetes mellitus, obesity and hepatic steatosis showed a strong correlation with metabolic syndrome. However, data on the influence of pancreatic steatosis on metabolic syndrome are lacking.

Our aim is to perform the prevalence of pancreatic steatosis in adults and its association with metabolic syndrome in a Chinese population.

This was a cross-sectional study, randomly selected. A total of 1190 health examination subjects were recruited. Pancreatic steatosis or hepatic steatosis was diagnosed via trans-abdominal sonography. The clinical and metabolic parameters were compared between the two groups, and their associations with pancreatic steatosis were examined.

The prevalence of pancreatic steatosis was 30.7%. The presence of pancreatic steatosis was significantly increased by age, gender, central obesity, hepatic steatosis, hypertriglyceridemia and hyperglycemia. In the logistic regression analysis, age (P < 0.05), central obesity (P < 0.01), diabetes (P < 0.05), hypertriglyceridemia (P < 0.05) and hepatic steatosis (P < 0.01) were independently associated with pancreatic steatosis. The number of the parameters of the metabolic syndrome in pancreatic steatosis group was more than that in non-pancreatic steatosis group [(2.5 ± 1.1) vs (1.4 ± 1.2)] (P < 0.01).

The pancreatic steatosis is strongly associated with the parameters of metabolic syndrome, such as central obesity, diabetes, and hepatic steatosis.