Metabolism: clinical and experimental
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Obesity is related to the risk for developing non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM), hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. Visceral adipose tissue (VAT) has been proposed to mediate these relationships. Abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) is divided into 2 layers by a fascia, the fascia superficialis. ⋯ In both men and women, the addition of VAT and subcutaneous abdominal adipose tissue depots only slightly increased the R(2). In men, when body fat compartments were considered independently, DSAT explained a greater portion of the variance (R(2) =.528) in fasting insulin than VAT (R(2) =.374) or non-VAT, non-DSAT subcutaneous adipose tissue (R(2) =.375). These data suggest that total body fat is a major contributor to the metabolic sequelae of obesity, with specific fat depots, VAT, and DSAT also making significant contributions.