Study of effects of total and visceral fat on cardiovascular sympathetic functions

Background : Obesity is characterized by an excessive deposition and storage of fat in the body, which alters the cardiovascular autonomic functions. Autonomic nervous system through its Sympathetic and Parasympathetic division regulates and modulates most of the visceral functions of the body. Methods :This was a cross sectional study with the primary data that includes 200 healthy volunteer male subjects between 20 to 35 years of age, in and around Shivpuri. For all the subjects anthropometric data was collected by Karada scan and cardiovascular sympathetic functions were assessed by sphygmomanometry and electrocardiogram. Observation and results: Descriptive statistics was done by using SPSS software version 16 for windows with descriptive analysis done by ANOVA analysis test which suggested increase in sympathetic and decrease in parasympathetic activity as visceral fat% increases. Conclusion: Study concludes that with increase in visceral fat% cardiovascular morbidity and mortality increases as compared to increase in total body fat %