Approved research

Multiparametric Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Obesity in Relation to Cardiovascular, Renal, Cerebral and Metabolic Health & Functioning.

Lay summary

The relationship between obesity and development of cardiovascular disease (CVD), chronic kidney disease (CKD), and cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) remains unclear. In obesity, large amounts of energy are stored in different fat compartments; initially in adipose tissue (ASAT, abdominal subcutaneous adiposetissue; VAT, visceral adiposetissue), and later in non-adipose tissue (ectopic lipid deposition) such as liver, heart, pancreas and kidney. We propose that ectopic lipid deposition, interferes with organ functioning. The aim of the study is to explore which fat compartments are more closely and independently associated with CVD, CKD, CSVD and diabetes, and their interaction on related outcomes. Our research will contribute to quantifying and understanding how different measures of fat compartments (ASAT, VAT, liver fat, pancreatic fat) in obesity influence cardiovascular, renal, cerebral and metabolic health and functioning, as well as related health outcomes such as, cardiovascular events (myocardial infarction, heart failure), stroke, peripheral artery disease, insulin resistance/metabolic syndrome and diabetes. Secondory objectives are to evaluate the influence of obesity on MRI markers of incipient brain injury (brain volume, white matter lesion load, lacunar infarcts, and cerebral microbleeds), DTI, cognition, and dementia. This proposal is a unique collaboration between radiologists (bringing expertise in technique, application and interpretation of MRI), clinicians (bringing expertise in obesity-related cardiac, renal, (cerebro-)vascular disease) and epidemiologists (bringing expertise in large data set statistical analysis and methodology) from the Leiden University Medical Center. We will use epidemiological and advanced statistical methods to study the effecs of obesity on cardiovascular, renal, cerebral and metabolic health and functioning. The ultimate goal is use in-vivo imaging in a personalized medicine based approach for management of obesity-related diseases. We aim to use all available observations in the UK Biobank that are currently released and will be released in the future, and that have been successfully imaged and/or have measures of relevant health outcomes and biochemical parameters, as described elswere in the application. Initally we will focus on the associations between MR imaging variables (Cardiac, pulse-wave velocity, and abdominal imaging) in relation to biochemical parameters and related health outcomes. In a second phase we will analyze brain imaging data, both (micro/macro)structural as well as functional (cognition and fMRI).