Body Composition in Asians and Caucasians: Comparative Analyses and Influences on Cardiometabolic Outcomes

Within the last four decades Asia has witnessed major transformation in its population demographics, which gave rise to changes in food availability, food habits and lifestyle. A significant consequence of these changes has been the continuing rise in overweight and obesity across Asia. In parallel, there has been a significant rise in Asians in the incidence of the major chronic diseases, particularly in cardiometabolic disorders such as metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and other cardiovascular diseases. Given that the majority of the evidence, to date, investigating the associations between adiposity and cardiometabolic disorder risk have been obtained from studies undertaken either in European or in North American Caucasians, in this chapter, we have reviewed differences in body fat content and distribution between East Asians, South Asians, and Caucasians. The evidence is consistent that the content and distribution of body fat are markedly different between the various ethnic groups. We found that Asians have a greater predisposition towards adiposity at higher BMI than in Caucasians. Moreover, at any given level of adiposity, Asians have a much greater predisposition to risk of cardiometabolic disorders than Caucasians. We therefore strongly endorse the need for different adiposity cutoffs in Asians as compared to the Caucasians. We have also reviewed the predictive abilities of the various body composition/adiposity measures in determining risk of cardiometabolic disorders in Asians.