Visceral Adipose Tissue and Cardiovascular Disease Risk

Adipose tissue has been recognized as an endocrine organ. Cytokines released from adipose tissue not only influence lipid metabolism, they also affect multiple organ systems such as the immune and nervous systems, and of interest in this review, the cardiovascular system. While there are multiple depots of adipose tissue, visceral adipose tissue appears to be the most metabolically active. This fat depot has been linked to dysfunction of the vascular endothelium with the subsequent development of atherosclerosis and incident cardiovascular events. In this regard and within the last two years, several studies have examined the effect of visceral adipose tissue on subclinical and clinical CVD outcomes. This review highlights these findings and focuses on the associations between visceral adipose tissue and ethnicity, risk factors, vascular changes, clinical effects and cardiovascular disease outcomes.