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Epidemiology and Population Health

Longitudinal patterns of abdominal visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue, total body composition, and anthropometric measures in postmenopausal women: Results from the Women’s Health Initiative

International Journal of Obesity volume 47, pages 288–296 (2023)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background

Abdominal adiposity, including visceral and subcutaneous abdominal adipose tissue (VAT and SAT), is recognized as a strong risk factor for cardiometabolic disease, cancer, and mortality.

Objective

The primary aim of this analysis is to describe longitudinal patterns of change in abdominal adipose tissue in postmenopausal women, overall and stratified by age, race/ethnicity, and years since menopause.

Methods

The data are from six years of follow up on 10,184 postmenopausal women (7828 non-Hispanic White women, 1423 non-Hispanic Black women, and 703 Hispanic women) who participated in the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI). The WHI is a large prospective cohort study of postmenopausal women across the United States. All participants in this analysis had DXA scans in the 1990s as part of the WHI protocol. Hologic APEX software was used to re-analyze archived DXA scans and obtain measures of abdominal adipose tissue. Analyses examined differences in abdominal adipose tissue, overall adiposity, and anthropometric variables.

Results

There were important differences in VAT and SAT by age and race/ethnicity. In women <60 years, VAT increased over the follow-up period, while in women ≥70 years, VAT decreased. Non-Hispanic Black women had the highest levels of SAT. Hispanic women had the highest VAT levels. Women more than ten years since menopause had less SAT and more VAT than women less than ten years since menopause, resulting in a higher VAT/SAT ratio. There was a moderate to strong correlation between measures of abdominal adipose tissue and anthropometric measurements of body size. Still, there were substantial differences in the quantity of VAT and SAT within BMI and waist circumference categories.

Conclusions

These results demonstrate differences in VAT and SAT according to age, race/ethnicity, time since menopause, and compared to standard measures of body composition in a large and diverse cohort of postmenopausal women.

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Fig. 1: Scatterplot comparing VAT with waist circumference values.
Fig. 2: Longitudinal change in adipose tissue in postmenopausal women.
Fig. 3: Longitudinal change in adipose tissue in postmenopausal women.
Fig. 4: Longitudinal change in adipose tissue in postmenopausal women.
Fig. 5: Change in measures of body composition over time.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available in the Biolincc repository, https://biolincc.nhlbi.nih.gov/home/.

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Acknowledgements

The Women’s Health Initiative Program Office: (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Bethesda, Maryland) Jacques Rossouw, Shari Ludlam, Joan McGowan, Leslie Ford, and Nancy Geller Clinical Coordinating Center: (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA) Garnet Anderson, Ross Prentice, Andrea LaCroix, and Charles Kooperberg Investigators and Academic Centers: (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA) JoAnn E. Manson; (MedStar Health Research Institute/Howard University, Washington, DC) Barbara V. Howard; (Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford, CA) Marcia L. Stefanick; (The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH) Rebecca Jackson; (University of Arizona, Tucson/Phoenix, AZ) Cynthia A. Thomson; (University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY) Jean Wactawski-Wende; (University of Florida, Gainesville/Jacksonville, FL) Marian Limacher; (University of Iowa, Iowa City/Davenport, IA) Jennifer Robinson; (University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA) Lewis Kuller; (Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC) Sally Shumaker; (University of Nevada, Reno, NV) Robert Brunner Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study: (Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC) Mark Espeland. The WHI program is funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through 75N92021D00001, 75N92021D00002, 75N92021D00003, 75N92021D00004, 75N92021D00005.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Epidemiology Division, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Hailey R. Banack

  2. Department of Health Promotion Sciences, Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Jennifer W. Bea, Zhao Chen, Robert M. Blew & Skye Nicholas

  3. Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Marcia Stefanick

  4. Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology/Biostatistics and Epidemiology Oklahoma University Health Sciences, Oklahoma City, OK, USA

    Robert A. Wild

  5. Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    JoAnn E. Manson

  6. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

    Andrew O. Odegaard

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Contributions

HB was responsible for analysis of study data and first draft of manuscript. JB and AO were responsible for the manuscript concept and data collection. RB and SN all assisted with analysis of DXA scans and generation of datasets for analysis. ZC, MS, RW, and JM were contributors to the original WHI study data collection. All authors contributed to the writing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Hailey R. Banack.

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Banack, H.R., Bea, J.W., Chen, Z. et al. Longitudinal patterns of abdominal visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue, total body composition, and anthropometric measures in postmenopausal women: Results from the Women’s Health Initiative. Int J Obes 47, 288–296 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41366-023-01266-9

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