BACKGROUND:

The study was ancillary to an NIH funded population-based project, the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study (ARIC) that is ongoing in Forsyth County, North Carolina.

DESIGN NARRATIVE:

Using MRI, the investigators sought to demonstrate strong relationships between intra-abdominal fat and a number of cardiovascular disease risk factors, including history of hypertension, diabetes, cigarette smoking, family history of cardiovascular disease, plasma concentrations of triglyceride, high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, HDL2 cholesterol, apo A1, Apo B, postprandial lipid response to a fat rich meal, glucose, insulin, sex hormone binding globulin, and total and free testosterone. Certain other risk factors were less certain to show a relation to intra-abdominal fat as measured by MRI, including various hemostatic factors, as well as certain dietary factors such as consumption of alcohol, dietary fat, and cholesterol, but this research afforded an opportunity to explore these relationships. Finally, the investigators proposed to relate intra-abdominal fat to more conventional measures of fat distribution (waist/hip ratio, subscapular skinfold thickness, etc.) in an attempt to identify strong correlates of intra-abdominal fat that could be more easily measured.