Ceccato, Filippo and Voltan, Giacomo (2025) Visceral Adiposity is closely linked to Vitamin D Status in Patients with endogenous Cushing’s Syndrome. [Data Collection]
Collection description
Background: Vitamin D deficiency is commonly observed in conditions characterized by obesity and exogenous glucocorticoid excess. However, the determinants of vitamin D status in endogenous Cushing’s syndrome (CS), particularly the role of visceral adiposity, remain poorly defined. Objective: To assess serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D 25(OH)D levels and body composition in patients with untreated endogenous CS compared with matched healthy controls, and to evaluate the associations between vitamin D status and adiposity parameters. Design: Monocentric, retrospective cross-sectional study including 51 newly diagnosed, CS patients and 52 age-, sex-, and BMI-matched healthy controls. Results: Patients with CS showed significantly lower 25(OH)D levels (p<0.001) and a higher prevalence of hypovitaminosis D (p<0.001) compared with controls, despite similar sunlight exposure. CS patients exhibited greater central adiposity, with higher trunk fat (p=0.008) and visceral VAT mass (p=0.016), while total body fat was comparable. Within the CS cohort, hypovitaminosis D was associated with increased LDL cholesterol (p=0.049), visceral adiposity index (p=0.05), higher VAT mass (p=0.038) and VAT percentage (p=0.045). Serum 25(OH)D correlated inversely with BMI (rho= -0.318, p=0.029), waist circumference (rho= -0.328, p=0.019), trunk fat percentage (rho= -0.448, p=0.042), and VAT (rho=-0.412, p=0.05). In multivariable models, 25(OH)D remained independently and inversely associated with VAT percentage after adjustment for age, BMI, and urinary free cortisol (β= -0.424, p=0.03). Conclusions: In endogenous CS, hypovitaminosis D is highly prevalent and strongly linked to visceral fat accumulation, particularly VAT percentage, rather than total adiposity. These findings suggest that fat distribution plays a key role in determining vitamin D status in this population, supporting the need for systematic vitamin D assessment and comprehensive body composition evaluation at diagnosis.
| DOI: |  10.25430/researchdata.cab.unipd.it.00001704 |
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| Keywords: | Cushing’s syndrome; Vitamin D; adiposity; | |||||||||
| Subjects: | Life Sciences > Physiology, Pathophysiology and Endocrinology: Organ physiology, pathophysiology, endocrinology, metabolism, ageing, tumorigenesis, cardiovascular diseases, metabolic syndromes > Fundamental mechanisms underlying cardiovascular diseases | |||||||||
| Department: | Departments > Dipartimento di Medicina (DIMED) | |||||||||
| Depositing User: | Filippo Ceccato | |||||||||
| Date Deposited: | 10 Dec 2025 09:11 | |||||||||
| Last Modified: | 10 Dec 2025 09:11 | |||||||||
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| Type of data: | Database | |||||||||
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| Resource language: | english | |||||||||
| Metadata language: | english | |||||||||
| Publisher: | Research Data Unipd | |||||||||
| Date: | 8 December 2025 | |||||||||
| Copyright holders: | The Author | |||||||||
| URI: | https://researchdata.cab.unipd.it/id/eprint/1704 |
orcid.org/0000-0003-1456-8716
