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Increasing weight loss attenuates the preferential loss of visceral compared with subcutaneous fat: a predicted result of an allometric model

International Journal of Obesity volume 32, page 722 (2008)Cite this article

Chaston and Dixon1 recently published an excellent systematic review analyzing the factors contributing to the relative change of visceral versus subcutaneous abdominal fat during weight loss. Their principle finding was that there is no compelling evidence that any investigated weight loss intervention selectively targets the reduction of visceral adipose tissue (VAT) to a greater extent than another. This conclusion agrees with our recent findings that changes of VAT mass are allometrically related to changes of total body fat mass (FM) during weight loss, regardless of gender or weight loss intervention.2 However, we were intrigued by another of their conclusions: that VAT was lost preferentially compared with subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) with modest weight loss, but the effect was attenuated with greater weight loss.1 Here we show that our simple allometric model also predicts this result.

By expressing FM change as the sum of the changes of VAT and SAT masses, our allometric model can be rewritten as follows:

where (%δV/%δS) is the percentage change of VAT versus SAT which was the primary variable calculated by Chaston and Dixon1 to measure preferential loss of VAT. The allometric constant is k=1.3±0.1 2 and SAT0 and VAT0 are the initial values of SAT and VAT, respectively. Using the fact that the allometric equation can be integrated exactly to give the following equation: VAT=b × FMk,2 where b is a positive constant determined by the initial values of VAT and FM, we derived the following equation for how preferential VAT loss changes with FM:

Since all factors on the right hand side of the above equation are positive, this equation implies that the preferential loss of VAT decreases with decreasing total body fat as would be expected with increased weight loss.

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References

  1. Chaston TB, Dixon JB . Factors associated with percent change in visceral versus subcutaneous abdominal fat during weight loss: findings from a systematic review. Int J Obes (London) 2008; e-pub ahead of print: doi:10.1038/sj.ijo.0803761.

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  2. Hallgreen CE, Hall KD . Allometric relationship between changes of visceral fat and total fat mass. Int J Obes (London) 2007; e-pub ahead of print.

  3. Smith SR, Zachwieja JJ . Visceral adipose tissue: a critical review of intervention strategies. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord 1999; 23: 329–335.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Biological Modeling, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

    K D Hall

  2. Department of Physics, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

    C E Hallgreen

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  1. K D Hall
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  2. C E Hallgreen
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Correspondence to K D Hall.

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Hall, K., Hallgreen, C. Increasing weight loss attenuates the preferential loss of visceral compared with subcutaneous fat: a predicted result of an allometric model. Int J Obes 32, 722 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2008.14

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