Research Projects of the Division of Medical and Biological Informatics
Quantification of Whole-Body Adipose Tissue
Quantification of the adipose tissue. From left to right: Original data, taken with a special protocol that separates the adipose tissue from containing water tissue; subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT, red); visceral adipose tissue (VAT, green) and total adipose tissue (TAT). Above: Coronal section. Below: Transversal section of the abdomen.
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Cancer, myocardial infarction and stroke are the main causes of death in Germany. The scientific literature contains comprehensive information indicating that the occurrence of these diseases is significantly influenced by lifestyle factors such as smoking, nutrition, physical activity and the development of body weight or the body fat mass.
However, the investigations of prospective studies on the role of overweight and obesity are nearly without exception based on simple measurements such as the relative weight (Body Mass Index BMI) or the abdominal circumference. Both measurements are approximate estimates of general or regional obesity. It is reasonable to assume that a significant proportion of obesity in the population is not detected by these measurements. This could by the reason why some of those persons classified as being of "normal weight" according to the BMI are already suffering from the metabolic consequences of obesity (e.g., insulin resistance).
The two German EPIC cohorts in Heidelberg and Potsdam taken together are the largest prospective cohort study in Germany. Approximately 53,000 study participants were accepted into both studies during the years 1994-1998 and were examined according to a uniform protocol with essentially identical methods. A new substudy in each case containing 600 randomly selected study participants from the study sites should facilitate exact calculations of the amount of body fat and its distribution by using whole-body magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
During this project, a procedure will be developed which will analyze the large quantities of data from 1,200 participants by using medical image processing. The method should calculate the total amount of fat as well as quantify its distribution. A distinction is made between three types of adipose tissue: total adipose tissue (TAT), subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT; fat lying beneath the skin) and visceral adipose tissue (VAT; fatty tissue between the abdominal organs). The results of this study should lead to the development of new measurements that can replace those such as the BMI which have been used until now.
Selected publications
- [P09-10] Wald D, Schwarz T, Fangerau M, Dinkel J, Delorme S, Kaaks R, Meinzer HP. Effiziente Methode zur Generierung von Ganzkörperdaten für die Fettgewebsanalyse. In Deserno TM, Handels H, Meinzer HP, Tolxdorff T (eds). Bildverarbeitung für die Medizin 2010. Heidelberg: Springer (2010) 226 - 230.
