安徽省儿童青少年高血压与体脂百分比关联性研究

目的 了解安徽省儿童青少年高血压的检出情况,分析其与体脂百分比的关联性。方法 对安徽省8 890名7~17岁中小学生进行了血压和皮褶厚度的测量,参考《中国高血压防治指南(2010年修订版)》中儿童高血压诊断标准评价儿童高血压情况,通过皮褶厚度计算体脂百分比。采用t检验、χ²检验和logistic回归分析体脂百分比与高血压的关联。结果 安徽省7~17岁中小学生高血压患病总人数(率)为1 210人(13.6%)。城市男生高血压患病率高于乡村男生,城市女生高血压总患病率高于乡村女生,城市男生高血压患病率高于城市女生,乡村男生高血压患病率高于乡村女生,差异均有统计学意义(χ²值分别为36.36、7.79、42.10和13.77,P<0.01)。城市男生体脂百分比高于乡村男生,城市女生显著高于乡村女生,差异均具有统计学意义(P<0.05)。男女生在P₄₀~组和P₆₀~组OR值分别为1.65(95% CI:1.12~2.45)和1.75(1.27~2.42),男女生分别从体脂百分比P₄₀和P₆₀开始患病风险明显增加,且男女生的高血压患病风险总体上随着体脂百分比的增加而上升。结论 高体脂百分比会增加儿童青少年高血压患病风险。     

Validation of a fast method for quantification of intra‐abdominal and subcutaneous adipose tissue for large‐scale human studies

Central obesity is the hallmark of a number of non‐inheritable disorders. The advent of imaging techniques such as MRI has allowed for a fast and accurate assessment of body fat content and distribution. However, image analysis continues to be one of the major obstacles to the use of MRI in large‐scale studies. In this study we assess the validity of the recently proposed fat–muscle quantitation system (AMRA^TM Profiler) for the quantification of intra‐abdominal adipose tissue (IAAT) and abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue (ASAT) from abdominal MR images. Abdominal MR images were acquired from 23 volunteers with a broad range of BMIs and analysed using sliceOmatic, the current gold‐standard, and the AMRA^TM Profiler based on a non‐rigid image registration of a library of segmented atlases. The results show that there was a highly significant correlation between the fat volumes generated by the two analysis methods, (Pearson correlation r = 0.97, p < 0.001), with the AMRA^TM Profiler analysis being significantly faster (~3 min) than the conventional sliceOmatic approach (~40 min). There was also excellent agreement between the methods for the quantification of IAAT (AMRA 4.73 ± 1.99 versus sliceOmatic 4.73 ± 1.75 l, p = 0.97). For the AMRA^TM Profiler analysis, the intra‐observer coefficient of variation was 1.6% for IAAT and 1.1% for ASAT, the inter‐observer coefficient of variation was 1.4% for IAAT and 1.2% for ASAT, the intra‐observer correlation was 0.998 for IAAT and 0.999 for ASAT, and the inter‐observer correlation was 0.999 for both IAAT and ASAT. These results indicate that precise and accurate measures of body fat content and distribution can be obtained in a fast and reliable form by the AMRA^TM Profiler, opening up the possibility of large‐scale human phenotypic studies. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The importance of being isomeric

In the normal individual, the parietal components of the body are mirror‐imaged and appropriately described as isomeric. The thoraco‐abdominal organs, in contrast, are lateralized. However, in “visceral heterotaxy,” the thoraco‐abdominal organs also show some degree of isomerism, best seen in the arrangement of the bronchial tree. Whether isomerism can be found within the heart remains controversial. One of two recent publications in this journal emphasized the crucial features of bronchial isomerism; the other, in contrast, confused the situation of isomerism within the heart. In this review, we show how the topic of cardiac isomerism is clarified by concentrating on the anatomical features of the cardiac components and determining how best they can be described. Appropriate manipulation of developing mice produces unequivocal evidence of isomerism of the atrial appendages, but with no evidence of ventricular isomerism. In hearts from patients with so‐called “heterotaxy,” only the atrial appendages, distinguished on the basis of the pectinate muscles lining their walls, are uniformly isomeric, permitting the syndrome to be differentiated into the subsets of left as opposed to right atrial appendage isomerism. Thus, controversies are defused by simply describing the isomerism of the atrial appendages rather than “atrial isomerism,” recognizing the frequency of abnormal venoatrial connections in these settings. Any suggestion of ambiguity is removed by the equally simple expedient of describing all the variable cardiac features, describing the arrangements of the thoracic and abdominal organs separately should there be discordances. Clin. Anat. 28:477–486, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Nutritional Modulation of Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease and Insulin Resistance

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) covers a spectrum of disorders ranging from simple steatosis (non-alcoholic fatty liver, NAFL) to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and cirrhosis. NAFL increases the risk of liver fibrosis. If the liver is fatty due to causes of insulin resistance such as obesity and physical inactivity, it overproduces glucose and triglycerides leading to hyperinsulinemia and a low high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol concentration. The latter features predispose to type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Understanding the impact of nutritional modulation of liver fat content and insulin resistance is therefore of interest for prevention and treatment of NAFLD. Hypocaloric, especially low carbohydrate ketogenic diets rapidly decrease liver fat content and associated metabolic abnormalities. However, any type of caloric restriction seems effective long-term. Isocaloric diets containing 16%–23% fat and 57%–65% carbohydrate lower liver fat compared to diets with 43%–55% fat and 27%–38% carbohydrate. Diets rich in saturated (SFA) as compared to monounsaturated (MUFA) or polyunsaturated (PUFA) fatty acids appear particularly harmful as they increase both liver fat and insulin resistance. Overfeeding either saturated fat or carbohydrate increases liver fat content. Vitamin E supplementation decreases liver fat content as well as fibrosis but has no effect on features of insulin resistance.