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A new predictive equation for evaluating women body fat percentage and obesity-related cardiovascular disease risk

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Abstract

Background

Obesity represents a global public health problem due to its association with cardiovascular diseases and reduced lifespan. The most widely used classification of obesity is expressed as Body Mass Index (BMI); however, this formula is an imprecise adiposity measurement that ignores several important factors involved. Body Adiposity Index (BAI) was more recently proposed as an indirect evaluation of percentage body fat (PBF). PBF is a direct measure of person’s relative body fat and a better predictor of obesity-related risk diseases than BMI and BAI. Since obesity and consequent diseases are considered epidemic, new accurate formulas for epidemiological studies are of interest to the scientific community. Because direct measurement of body composition could be quite expensive, the aims of our work were to analyse the distributions of PBF by Dual X-ray absorptiometry, and the creation of new predictive equation using only anthropometric measures that could be helpful to clinicians to assess easily body fat of female patients.

Methods/results

A sample of 1,031 Caucasian Italian women was recruited and BMI, BAI and PBF were evaluated. With the aim of developing a predictive model of PBF a multivariate regression model was fitted to observed data.

Conclusions

The definition of universally recognized PBF by gender and age could have public health implications. In this study, we developed a new predictive PBF equation that does not require the use of medical instruments or skilled measurement techniques and that may be easily applicable to Italian women.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Francesca Sarlo and Elaine Tyndall for or their insightful discussions on this work.

Conflict of interest

The authors declared no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Clinical Nutrition and Nutrigenomic, Department of Biomedicine and Prevention, University of Tor Vergata, Via Montpellier 1, 00133, Rome, Italy

    A. De Lorenzo, L. Iacopino, E. Domino, C. Gavrila, D. Minella & L. Di Renzo

  2. I.N.Di.M, National Institute for Mediterranean Diet and Nutrigenomic, Reggio Calabria, Italy

    A. De Lorenzo

  3. Department of Mathematics, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy

    A. Nardi

  4. Department of Internal Medicine, Assisi Hospital, Assisi (Perugia), Italy

    G. Murdolo

  5. University of Molise, Campobasso, Italy

    G. Scapagnini

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  1. A. De Lorenzo
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  4. E. Domino
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to A. De Lorenzo.

Additional information

A. De Lorenzo: On behalf of Italian Mediterranean Reference Diet study group. The members of ‘Italian Mediterranean Diet Study Group’ are listed in Appendix.

PBF equation can be accessed online on the site: http://www.mat.uniroma2.it/~ricerca/biosta/PBFcalculator.html.

Appendix

Appendix

The Italian Mediterranean Diet Study Group is composed by Antonino De Lorenzo, Laura Di Renzo, Leonardo Iacopino, Luigi Petramala, Daniela Minella, Mariagiovanna Rizzo, Maria Rosaria Lentini, Antonella Pellegrino, Maria Francesca Vidiri, Giuseppe Fortugno, Sara Calamusa,Valentina Fondacaro, Marta Piazzolla, Emidio Domino, Elaine Tyndall, Francesca Sarlo, Simona Giglio, Alberto Carraro, Roberto Valente, Caius Gavrila, Nicoletta Del Duca, Simona Paoloni.

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De Lorenzo, A., Nardi, A., Iacopino, L. et al. A new predictive equation for evaluating women body fat percentage and obesity-related cardiovascular disease risk. J Endocrinol Invest 37, 511–524 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40618-013-0048-3

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