BACKGROUND Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease has emerged as a novel cardiovascular risk factor. The aim of the study was to assess the effect of different ectopic fat depots on left ventricular (LV) function in subjects with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. METHODS AND RESULTS Myocardial and hepatic triglyceride contents were measured with 1.5 T magnetic resonance spectroscopy and LV function...

BACKGROUND Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), the most common genetic heart disease, is characterized by heterogeneous phenotypic expression. Body mass index has been associated with LV mass and heart failure symptoms in HCM. The aim of our study was to investigate whether regional (trunk, appendicular, epicardial) fat distribution and extent could be related to hypertrophy severity and pattern...

OBJECTIVE Cytokines released by epicardial fat are implicated in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. HIV infection and antiretroviral therapy have been associated with changes in body fat distribution and coronary artery disease. We sought to determine whether HIV infection is associated with greater epicardial fat and whether epicardial fat is associated with subclinical coronary atherosclero...

OBJECTIVE Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is the most common cause of liver dysfunction in Western countries and an independent risk factor for atherosclerotic heart disease. Appropriate noninvasive parameters are lacking for optimal risk stratification of cardiovascular disease in these patients. We evaluated several recently discovered noninvasive parameters for atherosclerosis in patients w...

OBJECTIVE It has been reported that epicardial adipose tissue could locally modulate the coronary artery functions through secretion of proinflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines. Epicardial fat tissue is further implicated in the pathogenesis of coronary artery disease (CAD) because of its proximity to the adventitia of the major epicardial coronary arteries. We investigated the relations...

BACKGROUND Chemerin has been associated with psoriasis and inflammation, but there are no studies demonstrating an association between chemerin and subclinical cardiac involvement in psoriatic patients. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate whether psoriatic patients with increased epicardial fat tissue, impaired flow-mediated dilatation, and diastolic dysfunction have higher serum che...

Background The coronary arteries are embedded in epicardial fat. To improve visualization in coronary MR angiography (CMRA) fat suppression techniques such as Spectral Presaturation with Inversion Recovery (SPIR) are often employed. Recently, water-fat separation using the multiecho 2 point Dixon method has gained increasing interest as it allows decomposing the MR signal into a water and fat i...

BACKGROUND The association between epicardial fat and coronary in-stent restenosis has not been evaluated. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the relationship of echocardiographic epicardial fat thickness (EFT) with restenosis in drug eluting stents (DES). METHODS In this study, 117 patients who underwent coronary angiography due to recurrent clinical symptoms or findings of n...

OBJECTIVE Coronary artery ectasia (CAE) refers to abnormal dilation of coronary artery segments to 1.5 times of adjacent normal ones. Epicardial fat is associated with cardiovascular risk factors. The relationship between CAE and epicardial fat has not yet been investigated. This study aimed to assess the relationship between CAE and epicardial fat volume (EFV) in older people by dual-source co...

OBJECTIVE The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between pericoronary fat and the severity and extent of atherosclerosis, quantified using 64-multidetector computed tomography, in patients with suspected coronary artery disease. METHODS The study population consisted of 131 patients who were clinically referred for noninvasive multislice computed tomography coronary ...