Age-related variation in systemic inflammatory markers largely explained by differences in visceral adipose tissue
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Body fat distribution, especially visceral adipose tissue (AT), is a major determinant of increased risk for new-onset diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Visceral AT accumulation and low-grade systemic inflammation marker levels are known to increase with age. The study was designed to examine whether such increase in certain inflammatory markers could be accounted for by an age-related change in regional AT distribution. To this end, 208 healthy adult men, covering a wide range of adiposity values, were studied. Overall, visceral AT accumulation positively correlated with age as well as with plasma C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) levels. Moreover, age also positively correlated with CRP, IL-6, and TNF-alpha levels. Compared with younger men, middle-aged men exhibited higher CRP and IL-6 levels together with greater amount of visceral AT. For this reason, 43 young men were individually matched with 43 middle-aged men regarding visceral AT. Once matched for visceral AT, the differences between young and middle-aged men as regards inflammatory markers disappeared. These results suggest that age-related variations in CRP and IL-6 may be largely accounted for by differences in visceral AT, partly related to ageing.
Abstract
