AUTHOR=An Qi , Zhang Qin-He , Wang Yue , Zhang Han-Yue , Liu Yu-Hui , Zhang Zi-Ting , Zhang Mei-Ling , Lin Liang-Jie , He Hui , Yang Yi-Fan , Sun Peng , Zhou Zhen-Yu , Song Qing-Wei , Liu Ai-Lian TITLE=Association between type 2 diabetes mellitus and body composition based on MRI fat fraction mapping JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health VOLUME=12 YEAR=2024 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1332346 DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2024.1332346 ISSN=2296-2565 ABSTRACT=Purpose

To explore the association between type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and body composition based on magnetic resonance fat fraction (FF) mapping.

Methods

A total of 341 subjects, who underwent abdominal MRI examination with FF mapping were enrolled in this study, including 68 T2DM patients and 273 non-T2DM patients. The FFs and areas of visceral adipose tissue (VAT), subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) and abdominal muscle (AM) were measured at the level of the L1-L2 vertebral. The FF of bone marrow adipose tissue (BMAT) was determined by the averaged FF values measured at the level of T12 and L1 vertebral, respectively. The whole hepatic fat fraction (HFF) and pancreatic fat fraction (PFF) were measured based on 3D semi-automatic segmentation on the FF mapping. All data were analyzed by GraphPad Prism and MedCalc.

Results

VAT area, VAT FF, HFF, PFF of T2DM group were higher than those of non-T2DM group after adjusting for age and sex (P < 0.05). However, there was no differences in SAT area, SAT FF, BMAT FF, AM area and AM FF between the two groups (P > 0.05). VAT area and PFF were independent risk factors of T2DM (all P < 0.05). The area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) for VAT area and PFF in differentiating between T2DM and non-T2DM were 0.685 and 0.787, respectively, and the AUC of PFF was higher than VAT area (P < 0.05). Additionally, in seemingly healthy individuals, the SAT area, VAT area, and AM area were found to be significantly associated with being overweight and/or obese (BMI ≥ 25) (all P < 0.05).

Conclusions

In this study, it was found that there were significant associations between T2DM and VAT area, VAT FF, HFF and PFF. In addition, VAT area and PFF were the independent risk factors of T2DM. Especially, PFF showed a high diagnostic performance in discrimination between T2DM and non-T2DM. These findings may highlight the crucial role of PFF in the pathophysiology of T2DM, and it might be served as a potential imaging biomarker of the prevention and treatment of T2DM. Additionally, in individuals without diabetes, focusing on SAT area, VAT area and AM area may help identify potential health risks and provide a basis for targeted weight management and prevention measures.