Ectopic Fat Depots and Cardiometabolic Burden: A Possible Dangerous Liaison in Women Planning Assisted Reproduction

Objective: We evaluated cardiometabolic burden in women planning assisted reproduction in order to identify subgroups at higher risk of pregnancy complications and cardiovascular disease. Materials and methods: In this cross sectional study we investigated 60 infertile women with BMI 25 kg/m^2 referred to the Center for Assisted Reproduction. All women underwent metabolic, anthropometric parameters and ultrasound evaluation of ectopic fat depots. Results: All women had waist 80 cm. We found that 93.3% of women had pathological subcutaneous, 58.3% visceral and 80% paraperirenal fat; all women had fatty liver. Visceral fat and severity of steatosis were significantly related to the presence of metabolic syndrome (OR =5.7; p=0.03). A significant negative correlation between low HDLc and paraperirenal fat, a significant positive correlation with fasting plasma glucose and paraperirenal fat (p=0.001) were found. We observed a significant positive correlation between visceral fat and hsCRP (p=0.002), HOMAIR (p=0.04) and triglycerides (p=0.002), a significant negative correlation with HDLc (p=0.05). Conclusion: This study by highlighting a clinically #x201C;dangerous liaison between ectopic fat depots and metabolic/inflammatory markers, might permit to identify women with a worse metabolic phenotype and encourage lifestyle changes for improving their general and reproductive health together.