Relationships of rapid eating with visceral and subcutaneous fat mass and plasma adiponectin concentration

Rapid eating has been demonstrated to be associated with obesity and overweight. However, few studies have characterized the separate relationships of eating speed with visceral and subcutaneous fat mass or circulating adiponectin concentration. We hypothesized that rapid eating is associated with the larger visceral fat tissue (VFT) area and lower adiponectin concentration, but not with the subcutaneous fat tissue (SFT) area in men and women. We performed a cross-sectional study of 712 adults aged 20–86 years (528 men and 184 women; mean ± SD age 59.36 ± 13.61 years). The participants completed a self-reported questionnaire, and underwent anthropometric and laboratory measurements and computed tomographic imaging of the abdomen as a part of annual medical check-ups. Multivariate linear regression analyses revealed that rapid eating was associated with larger visceral (B = 24.74; 95% CI 8.87–40.61, p = 0.002) and subcutaneous fat areas (B = 31.31; 95% CI 12.23–50.38, p = 0.001), lower adiponectin concentration (B = − 2.92; 95% CI − 4.39– − 1.46, p < 0.001), higher body mass index (BMI) (B = 2.13; 95% CI 1.02–3.25, p < 0.001), and larger waist circumference (B = 5.23; 95% CI 2.16–8.30, p < 0.001) in men, which is partially consistent with the hypothesis. In contrast, rapid eating was found to be associated only with BMI, and not with abdominal adipose area or adiponectin concentration in women, which is a result that is not consistent with the hypothesis. These results suggest that there is no difference in the association of rapid eating with VFT and SFT areas.