Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption is Associated With Change of Visceral Adipose Tissue Over 6 Years of Follow-Up
Jiantao Ma CIRCULATION January 11, 2016
Background—Sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) intake has been linked to abnormal abdominal adipose tissue. We examined the prospective association of habitual SSB intake and change in visceral adipose tissue (VAT) and subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT).
Methods and Results—The quantity (volume, cm3) and quality (attenuation, Hounsfield Unit) of abdominal adipose tissue were measured using computed tomography in 1,003 participants (mean age 45.3 years, 45.0% women) at exam 1 and 2 in the Framingham's Third Generation cohort. The 2 exams were approximately 6 years apart. At baseline, SSB and diet soda intake were assessed using a valid food frequency questionnaire.
Participants were categorized into 4 groups: none to <1 serving/month (non-consumers), 1 serving/month to <1 serving/week, 1 serving/week to 1 serving/day, and ≥1 serving/day (daily consumers) of either SSB or diet soda. After adjustment for multiple confounders including change in body weight, higher SSB intake was associated with greater change in VAT volume (P-trend<0.001). VAT volume increased by 658 cm3 (95%CI: 602-713), 649 cm3 (95%CI: 582-716), 707 cm3 (95%CI: 657-757), and 852 cm3 (95%CI: 760-943) from non-consumers to daily consumers. Higher SSB intake was also associated with greater decline of VAT attenuation (P-trend=0.007); however, the association became non-significant after additional adjustment for VAT volume change. In contrast, diet soda consumption was not associated with change in abdominal adipose tissue.
Conclusions—Regular SSB intake was associated with adverse change in both VAT quality and quantity, whereas we observed no such association for diet soda.
