Abdominal fat depots measured with computed tomography: effects of degree of XXXX , sex, and age.

@entity1 @entity28
Computed tomography scans at the level of L4/L5 were analysed in 66 @entity1 and 34 @entity1 who presented for routine tomography, stratified into different age categories. Areas of intra-abdominal fat and subcutaneous abdominal fat were calculated from the scans. In @entity1 and in @entity1 the proportion of the body surface as intra-abdominal fat increased with age (in @entity1 from 12.4 per cent in the age group less than 40 years to 18.0 per cent in the age group greater than 65 years; in @entity1 from 10.5 per cent to 14.7 per cent in the respective age categories). Only in @entity1 this increase with age was independent of the degree of @entity28 . In @entity1 younger than 40 years the proportion of intra-abdominal fat did not increase with increasing BMI while it did in older @entity1 and @entity1 . The proportion of intra-abdominal fat in 7 adolescents appeared to be 5.4 per cent, considerably lower compared to adult @entity1 and @entity1 . Subcutaneous fat areas increased with the degree of @entity28 but not with age. From simple anthropometric measurements, the intra-abdominal fat area was best correlated with the waist circumference in all ages (except for @entity1 younger than 40 years) while it showed weaker associations with abdominal skinfolds and circumference ratios. Age and BMI explained 68 and 74 per cent of the variance in intra-abdominal fat area in @entity1 and @entity1 respectively. Waist added 8 per cent to the explained variance in @entity1 but nothing in @entity1 . BMI and waist circumference showed similar correlations to total, intra-abdominal and subcutaneous fat areas in all age categories whereas correlations of skinfolds with intra-abdominal fat areas decreased with age.
