J Korean Med Sci.  2008 Apr;23(2):256-261. 10.3346/jkms.2008.23.2.256.

Visceral Fat Thickness Predicts Fatty Liver in Koreans with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

• Kim HJ
• Cho MH
• Park JS
• Nam JS
• Kang ES
• Ahn CW
• Cha BS
• Lee EJ
• Lim SK
• Kim KR
• Lee HC
• Huh KB

• KMID: 1713458
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2008.23.2.256

Abstract

Our aim was to study whether visceral adiposity is a predictor of diabetic fatty liver in Korean type 2 diabetes mellitus. In this study, abdominal ultrasonography was used to assess the presence of fatty liver in 1,898 patients with type 2 diabetes. We measured visceral fat thickness by high-resolutional ultrasonography and insulin resistance by Kitt. Half of the cohort had a fatty liver (50.2%). High visceral fat thickness had the highest odds ratio for developing fatty liver in both sexes (odds ratio [S.D]: 3.14 [2.24-4.69], p<0.00 in male, 2.84 [2.04-3.93], p<0.00 in female). In addition, visceral fat thickness of 42.45 and 37.7 mm in men and women, respectively, were chosen as the discriminating value to predict the presence of fatty liver with a sensitivity of 71% and 73% and a specificity of 70% and 70% in men and women, respectively. The area under the receiver-operating characteristics curve was 0.759 in men and 0.764 in women. Therefore we could conclude that the degree of visceral adiposity predicts the presence of fatty liver type 2 diabetes mellitus, whether centrally obese or not, suggesting that hepatic fat accumulation in a diabetic fatty liver may be influenced by visceral fat accumulation regardless of waist circumference.

Keyword

Visceral Fat Thickness; Fatty Liver; Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

MeSH Terms

Aged
Aorta/pathology
Cohort Studies
Diabetes Complications/*diagnosis
Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2/*diagnosis/pathology
Fatty Liver/*complications/*diagnosis
Female
Humans
Intra-Abdominal Fat/*pathology
Male
Middle Aged
Models, Statistical
Odds Ratio
ROC Curve
Sensitivity and Specificity

Figure

• 

  Fig. 1 Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) analysis of visceral fat thickness as a predictor of the presence of fatty liver in men (A) and women (B). Visceral fat thickness of 42.4 and 37.7 mm in men and women, respectively, were chosen as the discriminating value to predict the presence of fatty liver with a sensitivity of 71% and 73% and a specificity of 70% and 70% in men and women, respectively. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) was 0.759 in men and 0.764 in women.

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