Association of body surface scanner-based abdominal volume with parameters of the Metabolic Syndrome and comparison with manually measured waist circumference

• Published in: Scientific reports 2020-06, Vol.10 (1), p.9324-9324, Article 9324
• Main Authors: Jaeschke, Lina, Steinbrecher, Astrid, Hansen, Guido, Sommer, Stefan, Adler, Carolin, Janke, Jürgen, Pischon, Tobias
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 692/499; 692/699/317; 692/700/139/1735; 692/700/459; 692/700/478/174; Abdomen; Abdomen - anatomy & histology; Adult; Aged; Algorithms; Anthropometry - methods; Blood Glucose - analysis; Blood pressure; Cholesterol; Cholesterol, HDL - blood; Cross-Sectional Studies; Female; Glucose; High density lipoprotein; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Linear Models; Male; Metabolic disorders; Metabolic syndrome; Metabolic Syndrome - blood; Metabolic Syndrome - physiopathology; Middle Aged; multidisciplinary; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Triglycerides - blood; Waist Circumference
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-66095-6

To investigate abdominal volume determined by a new body scanner algorithm as anthropometric marker for Metabolic Syndrome (MetS) and its parameters compared to manually measured waist circumference (WC), we performed body scans in 411 participants (38% men, 20-81 years). WC and triglyceride, HDL-cholesterol, and fasting glucose concentrations, and blood pressure were assessed as MetS parameters. We used Spearman correlations and linear regression to investigate associations and goodness-of-fit (R², BIC) of abdominal volume and WC with MetS parameters, and logistic regression to analyse the discriminative power of WC and abdominal volume to assess likelihoods of MetS components and MetS. Correlations with triglyceride, HDL-cholesterol, and glucose concentration were slightly stronger for abdominal volume (r; 0.32, −0.32, and 0.34, respectively) than for WC (0.28, −0.28, and 0.29, respectively). Explained variances in MetS parameters were slightly higher and goodness-of-fit slightly better for abdominal volume than for WC, but differences were small. Exemplarily, glucose levels were 0.28 mmol/L higher (R² = 0.25; BIC = 945.5) per 1-SD higher  WC, and 0.35 mmol/L higher (R² = 0.28; BIC = 929.1) per 1-SD higher abdominal volume. The discriminative power to estimate MetS components was similar for WC and abdominal volume. Our data show that abdominal volume allows metabolic characterization comparable to established WC.