DOES VISCERAL ADIPOSE-TISSUE DIFFER FROM SUBCUTANEOUS ADIPOSE-TISSUE IN FATTY-ACID CONTENT

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether intra-abdominal adipose tissue differs from subcutaneous adipose tissue in fatty acid content. DESIGN: Cross -sectional study of patients undergoing exploratory laparotomy, with a dipose tissue sampling from subcutaneous, omental, mesenteric and retr operitoneal sites. SUBJECTS: Nineteen subjects, 8 men and 11 women, wi th a mean age of 64 (range 39-80), mean weight 78.9 kg (range 51-157) and mean body mass index of 27.5 (range 19.2-51.4), Fourteen of the 19 were undergoing surgery for colorectal cancer. MEASUREMENTS: Fatty ac id content was assessed by gas chromatography and was compared between sites and between patients using general linear modeling. Spearman co rrelation coefficients were used to assess the association between sub cutaneous and visceral adipose tissue. RESULTS: For each of 17 fatty a cids analyzed, there was a statistically significant difference in mea n fatty acid values across individuals (p < 0.001). For seven of the f atty acids, there was a borderline or significant difference in mean f atty acid values across site, but there was no consistent pattern for one site differing from the others. Subcutaneous adipose tissue fatty acid content was highly correlated to visceral adipose tissue for satu rated, unsaturated and trans fatty acids (p < 0.05 for 13 of 17 fatty acids). Variability across individuals was much greater than across si te, The total explained variability (R(2)) for each fatty acid ranged between 49 and 93%, with the vast majority contributed by differences between individuals, CONCLUSION: Fatty acid content of subcutaneous ab dominal adipose tissue is a good approximation of visceral adipose tis sue. Because variability in fatty acid content is much larger between individuals than within a single individual across sites, subcutaneous abdominal adipose tissue fatty acid content can be used as a distingu ishing characteristic among human populations.