الفهرس 
Obesity &its burden on cardiovascular system.Only 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The prevalence of obesity, especially among the young, is dramatically increasing in the United States. Obesity (visceral obesity) is associated with accelerated atherosclerosis and increased rates of cardiovascular death. There are many possible mechanisms by which an increase in adipose tissue could adversely affect the vessel wall. These include the changes in blood pressure, glucose level, lipid/lipoprotein metabolism, and systemic inflammation. In addition, factors secreted by adipose tissue may directly influence vessel wall homeostasis by influencing the function of endothelial cells, arterial smooth muscle cells, and macrophages in the vessel wall (Wexler et al., 1996).
MDCT is a potentially non invasive and useful tool for a comprehensive study and assessment of coronary arterial calcium. Coronary artery calcium (CAC) is an excellent marker of the process of atherosclerosis, as it is present almost exclusively in atherosclerotic plaques of the vessel wall, its amount correlating with the burden of the disease However, its role in the development of atherosclerotic coronary plaques is not well-defined at present, and because CAC is considered as a marker of the plaque burden, and not a risk factor in itself, its relation with coronary risk has been largely debated (Pitt& Rubenfire, 1999).
The purpose of this study is to confirm the hypothesis that the body morphology measures including body mass index and central adiposity would be significant predictors of prevalent CAC above that provided by the traditional cardiovascular risk factors in a free-living population. Additionally, we hypothesize that body morphology would add to the discriminatory power of the traditional risk factors for the presence of CAC
This study included 60 subjects, 42 of all subjects were men and 18 were women. The age of patients ranged from 56.6 to 75 and mean age was 59 with standard deviation 4.6.
The patients were selected with a body mass index ranged from 27.6 to 48 with a mean BMI 27.6 and standard deviation 5.5.
We excluded from this study patients with a history of heart disease-related surgery (CABG) and stent placement as presence of metallic stent or surgical clips will hamper assessment of coronary calcium scoring.
The statistics revealed that 80% of our patients (48 patients) were men and 20 % (12 patients) are women. They were classified into two groups according to presence or absence coronary arterial calcification (CAC).CAC was found in 43 patients and more common in men than in women about 70% men (31 patients ) and 30% women (12 patients), thus there is a correlation between CAC and sex, as our study revealed that there is a significant correlation ( p= 0.05).
This study showed that patients group with CAC always have higher body mass index (BMI) and this reflects the highly significant relationship between CAC and BMI (p<0.001).
Our study also revealed that the amount of visceral fat which was evaluated in our study by calculating visceral fat surface area (VFA) was much more in CAC group and this reflects the highly significant relationship between amount of CAC and VF (p<0.001), thus VFA, as a direct index of visceral adiposity, was found to be an independent predictor of the presence and quantity of CAC even after adjustment of BMI, age, and traditional cardiovascular risk factors in both sexes.
The distribution of traditional cardiovascular risk factors as regard DM, HTN,dyslipidemia and smoking in our study group show no significant correlation between these factors and development and extent of CAC