Central obesity and the accumulation of visceral fat are risk factors for the development of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Omentin is a protein expressed and secreted from visceral but not subcutaneous adipose tissue that increases insulin sensitivity in human adipocytes. To determine the impact of obesity-dependent insulin resistance on the regulation of two omentin isoforms, gene expression and plasma levels were measured in lean, overweight, and obese subjects. Omentin 1 was shown to be the major circulating isoform in human plasma. Lean subjects had significantly higher plasma omentin 1 levels than obese and overweight subjects. In addition, higher plasma omentin 1 levels were detected in women compared with men. Plasma omentin 1 levels were inversely correlated with BMI, waist circumference, leptin levels, and insulin resistance as measured by homeostasis model assessment and positively correlated with adiponectin and HDL levels. Both omentin 1 and omentin 2 gene expression were decreased with obesity and were highly correlated with each other in visceral adipose tissue. In summary, decreased omentin levels are associated with increasing obesity and insulin resistance. Therefore, omentin levels may be predictive of the metabolic consequences or co-morbidities associated with obesity.
Because of the limitation of body mass index (BMI) in distinguishing adipose mass from muscle, the tri-ponderal mass index (TMI) has been proposed as a new indicator for better assessing adiposity in children and adolescents. However, it remains unclear whether TMI performs better than BMI or other adiposity indices in predicting obesity status in childhood and obesity-related cardiovascular risk factors (CVRFs) in childhood or adulthood. We searched PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science for eligible publications until June 15, 2021. A total of 32 eligible studies were included in this systematic review. We found that TMI had a similar or better ability to predict body fat among children and adolescents than BMI. However, most of the included studies suggested that TMI was similar to BMI in identifying metabolic syndrome although TMI was suggested to be a useful tool when used in combination with other indicators (e.g., BMI and waist circumference). In addition, limited evidence showed that TMI did not perform better than BMI for identifying specific CVRFs, including insulin resistance, high blood pressure, dyslipidemia, and inflammation in children and adolescents, as well as CVRFs in adults.Systematic Review Registrationhttps://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero, CRD42021260356.
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