Race, Visceral Adipose Tissue, Plasma Lipids, and Lipoprotein Lipase Activity in Men and Women

Abstract

Abstract-Abdominal obesity is associated with numerous metabolic alterations, such as hypertriglyceridemia and low levels of high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. However, compared with abdominally obese white individuals, abdominally obese black individuals have been characterized by higher plasma HDL cholesterol levels, suggesting that the impact of abdominal fat accumulation on the lipoprotein-lipid profile may differ among ethnic groups. Therefore, we have compared the associations between body fatness, visceral adipose tissue (AT) accumulation, and metabolic risk variables in a sample of 247 white men and 240 white women versus a sample of 93 black men and 143 black women. Although no difference in mean total body fatness was found between the 2 race groups, white men had higher levels of visceral AT than did black men (PϽ0.001). Despite the fact that black women had a greater body fat content than did white women, black women had levels of visceral AT that were similar to those of white women, suggesting a lower susceptibility to visceral obesity in black women. This lower accumulation of visceral AT in blacks was accompanied by significantly reduced apolipoprotein B concentrations and ratios of total cholesterol to HDL cholesterol as well as higher plasma HDL cholesterol levels (PϽ0.05) compared with those values in whites. Irrespective of sex, higher postheparin plasma hepatic lipase (HL) and lower lipoprotein lipase (LPL) activities were found in whites, resulting in an HL/LPL ratio that was twice as high in whites as in blacks (PϽ0.005). Although differences in lipoprotein-lipid levels were noted between whites and blacks, results from multiple regression analyses revealed that after control for morphometric and metabolic variables of the study (body fat mass, visceral AT, LPL, HL, and age), ethnicity had, per se, only a minor contribution to the variance in plasma lipoprotein levels. Thus, our results suggest that the higher plasma HDL cholesterol levels and the generally more cardioprotective plasma lipoprotein profile found in abdominally obese black versus white individuals are explained, at least to a certain extent, by a lower visceral AT deposition and a higher plasma LPL activity in black individuals. bdominal obesity has been shown to be associated with the features of the insulin resistance-dyslipidemic syndrome, especially among patients characterized by an excess of visceral adipose tissue (AT). 1-5 Race differences have been reported in the relationship of body fatness to visceral AT accumulation, with whites being more prone to visceral AT deposition than blacks for any level of total body fat. 6 -8 We have also previously shown that excess visceral AT accumulation was related to reduced plasma HDL cholesterol levels in obese white subjects. 9 Because obese black individuals have been characterized by higher plasma HDL cholesterol levels than obese white individuals, 6,7,10 we have tested the hypothesis that the lower accumulation of visceral AT could be responsible for the higher ...

Ethnic differences in maternal total cholesterol and triglyceride levels during pregnancy: the contribution of demographics, behavioural factors and clinical characteristics

“…The ethnic differences found in both TC and TG levels confirm results from previous studies in both non-pregnant (Zoratti, 1998;Despres et al, 2000;Lamon-Fava et al, 2005) and pregnant women (Koukkou et al, 1994), reporting more favourable TC and TG levels in African/Afro-Caribbean women as compared with Caucasian women. Taylor et al (1987) found a significant difference in TG levels between postpartum African-Caribbean and Indian-Caribbean women, which is similar to our observations for African-Caribbean and Surinam-Hindustani women.…”

“…Numerous studies have shown that the accumulation of central fat is more associated with abnormal lipid/lipoprotein profile compared with a general fat distribution (Seidell et al, 2001;Snijder et al, 2004b;Canoy et al, 2006). The ethnic differences might be explained by the variability in fat deposition, that is visceral vs subcutaneous accumulation (Despres et al, 2000;Snijder et al, 2004a, b). For instance, Ghanaian women have more subcutaneous fat deposits compared with Caucasian women and also the lowest TC and TG levels (Tables 2 and 3).…”

“…This indicates that there could be modulators of lipoprotein metabolism involved that are related to visceral fat, which may result in a different expression of lipid phenotype. Indeed, Despres et al (2000) found higher lipoprotein lipase and lower hepatic lipase activities in African-American than in white women and Bower et al (2002) showed that African-American women have an increased capacity to synthesize locally TG in omental adipose tissue compared with Caucasian women. In African Americans, the relationship between BMI and waist circumference/visceral fat with assessment of computed tomography scanning (L4 protocol) is less than in white American women (Carroll et al, 2008).…”

The tumor necrosis factor-α gene -238 G>A polymorphism, dietary fat intake, obesity risk and serum lipid concentrations in black and white South African women

“…[50][51][52] Despite higher HDL-C levels, white women in this study had a more atherogenic lipid profile than black women. 50,53 We reported that the relationship between the TNFA -238 G4A polymorphism and serum LDL-C and T-C concentrations differed, depending on the intake of the n-3 PUFA's EPA and DHA, in white but not in black women.…”

Is Gender a Factor in the Reduction of Cardiovascular Risks With Exercise Training?

“…Generally, women store more subcutaneous fat in the gluteal-femoral region, whereas men store more fat in the abdominal-visceral depot. 36 CRP levels are more closely correlated with visceral fat than with subcutaneous fat. 34 When men and women lose BW after exercise training, men reduce more from the abdominal-visceral fat depot, whereas women reduce more subcutaneous fat; 37 hence, our result showing no gender difference in hsCRP reduction may be attributed to greater reduction in abdominal fat in men than in women.…”