1. ¹Division of Human Nutrition, National Institute of Health and Nutrition, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan
2. ²Human Genomics Laboratory, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, LA, USA
3. ³Faculty of Education, Mie University, Tsu, Mie, Japan
4. ⁴Physical Activity Sciences Laboratory, Laval University, Ste-Foy, Quebec, Canada
5. ⁵Division of Kinesiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
6. ⁶Departments of Genetics and Psychiatry, Division of Biostatistics, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
7. ⁷Department of Kinesiology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
8. ⁸Department of Health and Kinesiology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA
9. ⁹Laval University Medical Center, Ste-Foy, Quebec, Canada

Correspondence: C Bouchard, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, 6400 Perkins Road, Baton Rouge, LA 70808-4124, USA. E-mail: Bouchac@pbrc.edu

Received 4 April 2003; Revised 9 September 2003; Accepted 29 September 2003; Published online 25 November 2003.

Abstract

The objectives of this study are to investigate the relationships between abdominal fat and risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD) among normal-weight (NW) white subjects and to determine how these relationships differ by sex. NW adults (177 males and 258 females) and overweight adults (133 males and 111 females) from the Québec Family Study and the HERITAGE Family Study were retained for this study. Risk factors included systolic and diastolic blood pressures, low-density lipoprotein and high-density lipoprotein cholesterols, triglycerides, and fasting glucose. Only in NW female adults, abdominal visceral fat (AVF) area assessed by computed tomography was significantly correlated with all risk factors, except for fasting glucose, even after age, study cohort, and fat mass were taken into account. NW female subjects with at least one risk factor had a significantly higher AVF than those without risk factors, although the difference was small. Thus, only NW female adults with more AVF tended to have a more adverse CVD risk factor profile.