Metabolism: Relationship between abdominal muscle area and density and coronary artery calcification volume and density

Because the volume and density of coronary artery calcification (CAC) is contrary to cardiovascular risk, researchers recently published a study in the journal Metabolism-Clinical And A, an authoritative journal of metabolic diseases, to test the hypothesis that increased absal area (AMA) and density (AMD) are associated with lower coronary calcium (CAC) volume and higher CAC densityresearchers used data from 787 participants in the multi-ethnic atherosclerosis study and analyzed participants' abdominal and chest CT scansMuscle area, muscle density (attenuation) and visceral and subcutaneous fat were recorded through abdominal scansThe CAC volume and Agatston values were determined by chest scans to obtain a CAC density scorethe average age (SD) and BMI of the participants in thewere 67.8 (9.0) years and 27.9 (4.8)kg/m 2, respectively41% for women, 46 percent for whites, 60 percent for high blood pressure, 17 percent for diabetes and 46 percent for blood lipid abnormalitiesAMA is positively correlated with CAC volume (p 0.001) and negatively correlated with CAC density (p 0.001)In contrast, amd is negatively correlated with CAC volume in the minimum adjustment model and positively correlated with CAC density (p 0.001), but not significant in the hybrid variable adjustment model, it shows that AMA and AMD are associated with CAC volume and density, amA is significantly correlated with higher-risk CAC (high volume, low density), and AMD has no significant correlation with CAC volume or densityFuture studies need to consider muscle composition and the unique components of CAC