Visceral adipose tissue may predict biological ageing in middle-aged adults

A recent study suggests dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA)-derived visceral adipose tissue (VAT) may serve as a marker of accelerated biological ageing, independent of lifestyle and adiposity measures.

A team of investigators explored the relationship between DXA-derived VAT and two biomarkers of biological ageing (ie, phenotypic age acceleration [PhenoAgeAccel] and leukocyte telomere length [LTL]) in 4,799 individuals aged 45‒69 years from the Busselton Healthy Ageing Study.

VAT mass was quantified using whole-body DXA, and phenotypic age was estimated from chronological age and nine biomarkers. The investigators measured LTL as the telomeric DNA to single-copy gene ratio in a subgroup of 1,221 participants. They conducted sex-stratified linear regression to examine the associations, with adjustments for chronological age and lifestyle factors.

Mean VAT mass was 1,677 g in males and 882 g in females. Higher VAT correlated with greater PhenoAgeAccel in both sexes. Notably, each 1-standard deviation (SD) increase in VAT resulted in 1.397 (95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.197‒1.596) and 1.919 (95 percent CI, 1.738‒2.099) years higher PhenoAgeAccel in males and females, respectively.

Furthermore, an association between higher VAT and shorter LTL (‒0.041, 95 percent CIC, ‒0.069 to ‒0.013 per 1 SD) was observed in females only.

“Obesity, particularly excess VAT, may accelerate biological ageing; however, few studies have examined this in middle-aged adults,” the investigators said.