Anthropometric indices as surrogates for estimating abdominal visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue: A meta-analysis with 16,129 participants

Aim: To seek anthropometric indices that estimate visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue (VAT and SAT) by meta-analysis and comparing the predictive efficacy based on different characteristics of participants.

Methods: PubMed, PubMed Central, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure and Wanfang databases were searched for publications containing correlation coefficients of VAT and/or SAT with waist circumference (WC) and/or body mass index (BMI). The overall or subgroup pooled results were analyzed by meta and metafor packages of R with random effects model. MedCalc software was used to compare the correlation coefficients between groups.

Results: Twenty-nine publications were included in this meta-analysis. The correlation coefficients of VAT-WC, VAT-BMI, SAT-WC and SAT-BMI for total studies were between 0.640 and 0.785. The correlation of VAT with WC was larger than that with BMI (Z = 11.664, P < 0.001). Meanwhile, the correlation coefficients of VAT-WC were statistically different among different age groups, areas, ethnicities, body shapes, scanning levels, units and instruments of measuring VAT (P < 0.05). The overall correlation of SAT with BMI was larger than that with WC (Z = 3.805, P < 0.001). The subgroups' correlation coefficients of SAT-BMI showed statistical differences between genders, age groups, areas, ethnicities, body shapes, scanning levels, units (cm² and cm³) and instruments of measuring SAT (P < 0.05).

Conclusions: WC may be a common and simple surrogate for estimating VAT, and BMI for SAT, especially in Europeans, but not in the aged people.