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Body Fat Distribution, Cardiometabolic Traits, and Risk of Major Lower-Extremity Arterial Disease in Postmenopausal Women
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Body Fat Distribution, Cardiometabolic Traits, and Risk of Major Lower-Extremity Arterial Disease in Postmenopausal Women

Guo-Chong Chen, Rhonda Arthur, Victor Kamensky, Jin Choul Chai, Bing Yu, Aladdin H Shadyab, Matthew Allison, Yangbo Sun, Nazmus Saquib, Robert A Wild, …
Diabetes care, Vol.45(1), pp.222-231
01/01/2022
DOI: 10.2337/dc21-1565
PMCID: PMC8753769
PMID: 34732526
url
https://doi.org/10.2337/dc21-1565View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

To assess the relationship between body fat distribution and incident lower-extremity arterial disease (LEAD). We included 155,925 postmenopausal women with anthropometric measures from the Women's Health Initiative who had no known LEAD at recruitment. A subset of 10,894 participants had body composition data quantified by DXA. Incident cases of symptomatic LEAD were ascertained and adjudicated through medical record review. We identified 1,152 incident cases of LEAD during a median 18.8 years follow-up. After multivariable adjustment and mutual adjustment, waist and hip circumferences were positively and inversely associated with risk of LEAD, respectively (both P-trend < 0.0001). In a subset (n = 22,561) where various cardiometabolic biomarkers were quantified, a similar positive association of waist circumference with risk of LEAD was eliminated after adjustment for diabetes and HOMA of insulin resistance (P-trend = 0.89), whereas hip circumference remained inversely associated with the risk after adjustment for major cardiometabolic traits (P-trend = 0.0031). In the DXA subset, higher trunk fat (P-trend = 0.0081) and higher leg fat (P-trend < 0.0001) were associated with higher and lower risk of LEAD, respectively. Further adjustment for diabetes, dyslipidemia, and blood pressure diminished the association for trunk fat (P-trend = 0.49), yet the inverse association for leg fat persisted (P-trend = 0.0082). Among U.S. postmenopausal women, a positive association of upper-body fat with risk of LEAD appeared to be attributable to traditional risk factors, especially insulin resistance. Lower-body fat was inversely associated with risk of LEAD beyond known risk factors.
Body Fat Distribution Body Mass Index Cardiovascular Diseases Extremities Female Humans Postmenopause Risk Factors

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