Ultrasound-assessed visceral fat and associations with glucose homeostasis and cardiovascular risk in clinical practice

Despite the lack of evidence that assessing the global cardiovascular risk leads to a decreased incidence of cardiovascular events, accurate patient profiling is paramount in preventive medicine. An excess of visceral fat (VF) is associated with an enhanced cardiovascular risk; importantly, VF is quantifiable rapidly, cheaply and safely by ultrasound, which makes it suitable for use in clinical practice. In the present study, we aimed to evaluate if US-measured VF (USVF) could be a better predictor of glucose homeostasis and cardiovascular risk than simple anthropometric measures.