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 “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.