Association between Body Composition Contents and Hepatic Fibrosis in Sarcopenic Obesity

Tae-Hoon Kim; Chang-Won Jeong; ChungSub Lee; SiHyeong Noh; Dong Wook Lim; Jin Woong Kim; Hyung Joong Kim; Youe Ree Kim

doi:10.3390/jcm12134279

Association between Body Composition Contents and Hepatic Fibrosis in Sarcopenic Obesity

J Clin Med. 2023 Jun 26;12(13):4279. doi: 10.3390/jcm12134279.

Authors

Tae-Hoon Kim¹, Chang-Won Jeong¹, ChungSub Lee¹, SiHyeong Noh¹, Dong Wook Lim¹, Jin Woong Kim², Hyung Joong Kim³, Youe Ree Kim⁴

Affiliations

¹ Medical Convergence Research Center, Wonkwang University, Wonkwang University Hospital, Iksan 54538, Republic of Korea.
² Department of Radiology, Chosun University Hospital of Medicine, Chosun University College, Gwangju 61453, Republic of Korea.
³ Department of Biomedical Engineering, Kyung Hee University, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul 02447, Republic of Korea.
⁴ Department of Radiology, Wonkwang University Hospital, Wonkwang University School of Medicine, Iksan 54538, Republic of Korea.

Abstract

It is well established that sarcopenic obesity (SO) is linked to many diseases such as metabolic and non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases, but there is little known about the relationship between SO and hepatic fibrosis progression in chronic liver disease. This study compared body composition contents in patients with non-obesity (NOb) and SO using abdominal magnetic resonance imaging and investigated the relationship between hepatic fibrosis and SO factors. This retrospective study enrolled 60 patients (28 NOb; 32 SO) from June 2014 to December 2020. Patients underwent histopathologic investigation where they classified fibrosis stages based on the Meta-analysis of Histological Data in Viral Hepatitis fibrosis scoring system. Muscle and fat areas at the third lumber vertebra level were assessed. The variation in the areas of muscle (MA), subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT), and visceral adipose tissue (VAT) among fibrosis stages, and associations between hepatic fibrosis and SO factors, were analyzed. There were significant differences in SAT and VAT (p < 0.001), whereas there was no difference in MA (p = 0.064). There were significant differences in MA/SAT (p = 0.009), MA/VAT (p < 0.001), and MA/(SAT+VAT) (p < 0.001). In all the patients, hepatic fibrosis positively correlated with serum aspartate aminotransferase level (AST, R = 0.324; p = 0.025). Especially in SO patients, hepatic fibrosis closely correlated with body mass index (BMI, R = 0.443; p = 0.011), AST (R = 0.415; p = 0.044), VAT (R = 0.653; p < 0.001), MA/VAT (R = -0.605; p < 0.001), and MA/(SAT+VAT) (R = -0.416; p = 0.018). However, there was no association in NOb patients. This study demonstrated that SO patients had larger SAT and VAT than NOb patients. Hepatic fibrosis in SO positively correlated with body visceral fat composition in combination with BMI and AST level. These findings will be useful for understanding the relationship between the hepatic manifestation of fibrosis and body fat composition in sarcopenia and SO.

Keywords: body composition; hepatic fibrosis; sarcopenic obesity (SO); third lumber spine (L3).

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the grants of the Korea Health Technology R&D Project through the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), funded by the Ministry of Health & Welfare (HI18C1216), and by the grants of the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) (No. 2021R1A5A8029876).