Sex-specific and BMI-specific associations between visceral fat and diabetic kidney disease in patients with diabetes: a large-scale multicentre prospective cohort study - PubMed
5 hours ago
- #sex-specific risk
- #visceral fat
- #diabetic kidney disease
- A large-scale prospective cohort study of 93,532 adults with diabetes investigated the association between directly measured visceral fat area (VFA) and incident diabetic kidney disease (DKD).
- Higher VFA was significantly associated with increased DKD risk overall, with an adjusted hazard ratio of 1.08 per IQR increase (52 cm²).
- Sex-stratified analyses revealed a U-shaped relationship in men, where both low (≤50 cm²) and high (>100 cm²) VFA levels increased DKD risk, while women showed increased risk only at higher VFA levels (>75 cm²).
- In men, the U-shaped risk pattern persisted across BMI categories (normal weight, overweight, obesity), with the highest risks observed at both VFA extremes, particularly among those with obesity.
- For women, elevated DKD risk began at VFA >75 cm² in non-overweight and overweight groups, and extended to lower VFA levels (50-75 cm²) in those with obesity.
- The findings highlight distinct sex-specific patterns in VFA-DKD associations and identify low-VFA men as a previously overlooked high-risk population, supporting precise clinical risk stratification.