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. 2012 Jan;35(1):117-24.
doi: 10.1002/jmri.22757. Epub 2011 Aug 16.

Does vertebral bone marrow fat content correlate with abdominal adipose tissue, lumbar spine bone mineral density, and blood biomarkers in women with type 2 diabetes mellitus?

Thomas Baum  1 , Samuel P Yap, Dimitrios C Karampinos, Lorenzo Nardo, Daniel Kuo, Andrew J Burghardt, Umesh B Masharani, Ann V Schwartz, Xiaojuan Li, Thomas M Link
Affiliations

Does vertebral bone marrow fat content correlate with abdominal adipose tissue, lumbar spine bone mineral density, and blood biomarkers in women with type 2 diabetes mellitus?

Thomas Baum et al. J Magn Reson Imaging. 2012 Jan.

Abstract

Purpose: To compare vertebral bone marrow fat content quantified with proton MR spectroscopy ((1)H-MRS) with the volume of abdominal adipose tissue, lumbar spine volumetric bone mineral density (vBMD), and blood biomarkers in postmenopausal women with and without type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).

Materials and methods: Thirteen postmenopausal women with T2DM and 13 age- and body mass index-matched healthy controls were included in this study. All subjects underwent (1)H-MRS of L1-L3 to quantify vertebral bone marrow fat content (FC) and unsaturated lipid fraction (ULF). Quantitative computed tomography (QCT) was performed to assess vBMD of L1-L3. The volumes of abdominal subcutaneous/visceral/total adipose tissue were determined from the QCT images and adjusted for abdominal body volume (SAT(adj)/VAT(adj)/TAT(adj)). Fasting blood tests included plasma glucose and HbA1c.

Results: Mean FC showed an inverse correlation with vBMD (r = -0.452; P < 0.05) in the whole study population. While mean FC was similar in the diabetic women and healthy controls (69.3 ± 7.5% versus 67.5 ± 6.1%; P > 0.05), mean ULF was significantly lower in the diabetic group (6.7 ± 1.0% versus 7.9 ± 1.6%; P < 0.05). SAT(adj) and TAT(adj) correlated significantly with mean FC in the whole study population (r = 0.538 and r = 0.466; P < 0.05). In contrast to the control group, significant correlations of mean FC with VAT(adj) and HbA1c were observed in the diabetic group (r = 0.642 and r = 0.825; P < 0.05).

Conclusion: This study demonstrated that vertebral bone marrow fat content correlates significantly with SAT(adj), TAT(adj), and lumbar spine vBMD in postmenopausal women with and without T2DM, but with VAT(adj) and HbA1c only in women with T2DM.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
QCT based volumetric bone mineral density (vBMD) measurements in L1 (A), L2 (B), and L3 (C). Measurements were performed in automatically placed oval regions of interest (red marked in the axial images, yellow marked in the sagittal images).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Threshold-based segmentation of total abdominal cross-sectional area (outer contour) and the outline along the abdominal wall and erector spinae muscle (inner contour) for abdominal adipose tissue measurements.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Visceral adipose tissue (VAT) measurements using QCT images: A: Representative slice with the segmented inner contour (blue outline along the abdominal wall and erector spinae muscle) B: VAT mask (including all pixels within the inner contour and the selected attenuation range)
Figure 4
Figure 4
1H-MRS of the vertebral bone marrow resolves four peaks: unsaturated lipids (UL), water (W), residual lipids (RL) and saturated lipids (SL). The four peaks were fitted with Voigt models to estimate their areas and line widths (18;19). The acquired spectrum (blue line with the four peaks) is overlaid with the fitted spectrum (dashed red line). The lower blue line indicates the difference between acquired and fitted spectrum.
Figure 5
Figure 5
The scatter-plot shows the correlation between mean vertebral bone marrow fat content of L1–L3 and HbA1c levels in the diabetic subjects with linear fitting (r=0.825; p<0.05) and non-linear fitting (r=0.838; p<0.05), respectively.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Diabetic subjects with HbA1c levels >7% (n=8) showed significantly (p<0.05) higher mean vertebral bone marrow fat content than diabetic subjects with HbA1c levels ≤ 7% (n=5). The chart depicts mean ± SD of the vertebral bone marrow fat content of L1–L3 for each group.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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