Impact of Visceral Obesity on the Risk of Incident Metabolic Syndrome in Metabolically Healthy Normal Weight and Overweight Groups: A Longitudinal Cohort Study in Korea

Background Although both obesity, measured by body mass index, and visceral obesity are known to be major risk factors of metabolic syndrome and its components, there have been debates on the relative contribution of general obesity and visceral obesity to the development of metabolic syndrome. Methods We performed a large longitudinal cohort study of 3,093 subjects (age range, 18–65 years) who were metabolically healthy and had a normal...