Obesity Phenotypes and Its Relation to Cardiovascular Diseases

Obesity is a condition caused by increasing the fat components of body resulting in body weight increase. Obesity leads to several complications like type 2 diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular events, sleep apnea. But obesity can no longer be evaluated solely by the body mass index (expressed in kg/m2) because it represents a heterogeneous entity (1). As there are several cardio-metabolic imaging studies have shown that some individuals who have a normal weight or who are overweight are at high risk if they have an excess of visceral adipose tissue-a condition often accompanied by accumulation of fat in normally lean tissues (ectopic fat deposition in liver, heart, skeletal muscle, etc.) (2) On the other hand, individuals who are overweight or obese can nevertheless be at much lower risk than expected when faced with excess energy intake if they have the ability to expand their subcutaneous adipose tissue mass, particularly in the gluteal-femoral area, as preferential fat storage in the lower body depot may act as a metabolic buffer and protect other tissues from lipotoxicity caused by lipid overflow and ectopic fat (3). Hence, excessive amounts of visceral adipose tissue and of ectopic fat largely define the cardiovascular disease risk of overweight and moderate obesity (4). Epicardial fat is considered as indicator of cardiovascular risk. Several studies have tested the association between epicardial fat thickness (EFT) and coronary artery disease many studies stated that epicardial fat is independently and linearly associated with CAD and its severity .In this study we aim to monitor the extent of obesity phenotypes association to cardiovascular diseases in patients attending to Obesity Clinic in Assuit Hospital University.