Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Short Communication
  • Published:

Artery remodeling and abdominal adiposity in nonobese postmenopausal women

Abstract

Background/Objectives:

We aimed to assess, in nonobese postmenopausal women, whether markers of central adiposity, especially waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), would be associated with vascular remodeling.

Subject/Methods:

We enrolled 263 postmenopausal nonobese women without metabolic syndrome or diabetes. The strongest anthropometric measure related to brachial artery diameter (BAD) was WHR. Therefore, we divided the population in tertiles according to WHR values. Women in third tertiles were older, with higher body mass index, had worse lipid profile and a higher BAD than women in the first and second tertiles.

Results:

An analysis of covariance confirmed that BAD was increased with increasing tertiles after correction for confounding variables.

Conclusion:

BAD, a surrogate measure of cardiovascular disease, was correlated to WHR in nonobese population; therefore, nonobese women with high WHR should be carefully considered because of a possible worse cardiovascular risk profile.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abbasi F, Brown Jr BW, Lamendola C, McLaughlin T, Reaven GM (2002). Relationship between obesity, insulin resistance and coronary heart disease risk. J Am Coll Cardiol 40, 937–943.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Deng DX, Tsalenko A, Vailaya A, Ben-Dor A, Kundu R, Estay I et al. (2006). Differences in vascular bed disease susceptibility reflect differences in gene expression response to atherogenic stimuli. Circ Res 98, 200–208.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Expert Panel on Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Cholesterol in Adults (2001). Executive summary of The Third Report of The National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) Expert Panel on Detection, Evaluation, And Treatment of High Blood Cholesterol In Adults (Adult Treatment Panel III). JAMA 285, 2486–2497.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lu B, Zhou J, Waring ME, Parker DR, Eaton CB (2009). Abdominal obesity and peripheral vascular disease in men and women: a comparison of waist-to-thigh ratio and waist circumference as measures of abdominal obesity. Atherosclerosis 208, 253–257. doi:10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2009.06.027.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Montalcini T, Gorgone G, Gazzaruso C, Garzaniti A, Pujia A (2010). Large brachial artery diameter and metabolic syndrome in post-menopausal women. Atherosclerosis 210, 458–460.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Montalcini T, Gorgone G, Gazzaruso C, Sesti G, Perticone F, Pujia A (2008). Large brachial and common carotid artery diameter in postmenopausal women with carotid atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis 196, 443–448.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Srikanthan P, Seeman TE, Karlamangla AS (2009). Waist-hip-ratio as a predictor of all-cause mortality in high-functioning older adults. Ann Epidemiol 19, 724–731.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sturm W, Sandhofer A, Engl J, Laimer M, Molnar C, Kaser S et al. (2009). Influence of visceral obesity and liver fat on vascular structure and function in obese subjects. Obesity 17, 1783–1788.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wildman RP, Muntner P, Reynolds K, McGinn AP, Rajpathak S, Wylie-Rosett J et al. (2008). The obese without cardiometabolic risk factor clustering and the normal weight with cardiometabolic risk factor clustering: prevalence and correlates of 2 phenotypes among the US population (NHANES 1999-2004). Arch Intern Med 168, 1617–1624.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yeboah J, Crouse JR, Hsu FC, Burke GL, Herrington DM (2007). Brachial flow-mediated dilation predicts incident cardiovascular events in older adults: the Cardiovascular Health Study. Circulation 115, 2390–2397.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yusuf S, Hawken S, Ounpuu S, Bautista L, Franzosi MG, Commerford P et al., INTERHEART Study Investigators (2005). Obesity and the risk of myocardial infarction in 27,000 participants from 52 countries: a case-control study. Lancet 366, 1640–1649.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to T Montalcini.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Montalcini, T., Gorgone, G., Garzaniti, A. et al. Artery remodeling and abdominal adiposity in nonobese postmenopausal women. Eur J Clin Nutr 64, 1022–1024 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2010.131

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2010.131

Keywords

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links