One-year reductions in body weight and blood pressure, but not in visceral fat accumulation and adiponectin, improve urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio in middle-aged Japanese men.

Microalbuminuria has been recognized recently as a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases as well as renal failure and is often found in subjects with metabolic syndrome. The relationship between visceral fat accumulation and microalbuminuria, urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio (UACR), has not been fully clarified. Our cross-sectional study demonstrated that visceral fat accumulation is associated with increases in UACR. However, the accompanying obesity-related risk factors, especially hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) and elevated blood pressure, strongly increased the risk of UACR (1). We have reported that reductions in both body weight and estimated visceral fat area (eVFA) measured by the bioelectrical impedance analysis method (2) were accompanied by reductions in the number of obesity-related cardiovascular risk factors (3) and increases in serum levels of adiponectin (4) in our longitudinal Amagasaki Visceral Fat Study, in which intensive risk factor–oriented health promotion programs were …