|
Abstract
As visceral adipose tissue (AT) accumulation and inflammatory markers are known to increase with age, we examined whether this agerelated
change in regional AT distribution could contribute to the increase in the concentration of some inflammatory markers found with age.
Two hundred eight healthy men aged 18.6 to 72.2 years and covering a wide range of adiposity values (body mass index, 18.5-39.3 kg/m 2)
were studied. Plasma C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and tumor necrosis factor –α (TNF-α) levels were measured by enzymelinked
immunosorbent assay. Anthropometric characteristics such as height, weight, and waist girth were measured; and body mass index
was calculated. Cross-sectional areas of abdominal AT were obtained at L4-L5 by computed tomography. Fasting blood samples were
collected to determine a complete lipoprotein lipid profile, and a 75-g oral glucose tolerance test was performed. Overall, visceral AT
accumulation was positively correlated with age ( r = 0.51, P b .0001) as well as with plasma CRP (r = 0.39, P b .0001), IL-6 (r = 0.32, P b
.0001), and TNF- α (r = 0.14, P b .05) levels. A significant positive relationship was also observed between age and CRP (r = 0.36, P b
.0001), IL-6 ( r = 0.39, P b .0001), or TNF-α (r = 0.15, P b .05) concentrations. As middle-aged men were characterized by higher CRP (1.32
[25th percentile, 0.71; 75th percentile, 2.71] vs 0.66 [0.36, 1.62] mg/L, P b .0001) and IL-6 (1.60 [1.09, 2.28] vs 1.12 [0.77, 1.60] pg/mL, P
b .0001) levels as well as by a greater amount of visceral AT (P b .0001) than young men, we have individually matched 43 young men (age,
28.6 ± 5.82 years) with 43 middle-aged men (age, 57.6 ± 5.15 years) on the basis of their visceral AT. Matching for visceral AT eliminated the
difference between middle-aged men and younger adult men in inflammatory markers. These results suggest that the age-related variation in
CRP and IL-6 is largely explained by differences in visceral AT.
| 
