The Relationships Between Anthropometric Measurements, Organ Weights and Intracranial, Carotid and Coronary Atherosclerosis

Background: Atherosclerosis is the most common cause of cardiovascular-cerebrovascular diseases. Obesity and atherosclerosis are related, and obesity can lead to systemic diseases and an increase in organ weight. Anthropometric measurements such as body mass index, waist circumference and hip circumference are used to determine the risk of obesity. We conducted this study to evaluate the relationship between obesity and atherosclerosis in postmortem cases. We aimed to determine the relationships among anthropometric measurements; subcutaneous adipose tissue thickness; atherosclerosis in the intracranial, carotid, and coronary arteries and organ weights.

Methods: Prospective data analysis was performed from 230 forensic autopsies of 18-75-year-olds from 22/01/2020 to 22/01/2021. Age, sex, history of disease, cause of death, height, weight, body mass index, waist circumference, hip circumference, waist/hip ratio, subcutaneous adipose tissue thickness, and organ weights of the patients were recorded. Atheroma plaques and stenosis in the intracranial, carotid, and coronary arteries were examined. Statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 29. The Mann-Whitney U or Kruskal Wallis tests were employed to compare continuous variables. Categorical variables were compared using the Chi-square test.

Results: This study included 187 (81.3%) males and 43 (18.7%) females, and the mean age of the patients was 49.3 ± 17.5 years. Body mass index was significantly and positively correlated with waist circumference, hip circumference, subcutaneous adipose tissue thickness, and the waist/hip ratio. Body mass index, waist/hip ratio, and subcutaneous adipose tissue thickness were significantly positively correlated with heart, liver, kidney, and spleen weights. While body mass index, waist/hip ratio, and subcutaneous adipose tissue thickness were negatively correlated with brain weight in females, this correlation was not detected in males. There were significant associations between the waist/hip ratio and atheroma plaque in the intracranial arteries and ≥ 50% stenosis in the LAD-RCA arteries.

Conclusions: The methods used in the assessment of obesity are important. In study, obesity was approached from a broad perspective by evaluating anthropometric measurements used for obesity diagnosis and atherosclerosis together with organ weights in postmortem cases. We believe that our study will contribute to the assessment of cardiovascular disease risk factors.