This study was conducted to compare the physiological and metabolic responses between subcutaneous abdominal adipose tissue (AT) and femoral AT after meal ingestion through adipose tissue blood flow (ATBF) measurements. For that purpose, 36 healthy nonobese subjects (18 males and 18 females comparable for age and body mass index [BMI]) were studied according to their ATBF responses to meal ingestion and a subgroup of 12 of these volunteers underwent arterio-venous measurements across the two depots to study metabolic physiology. Results showed that there was no difference in fasting ATBF between subcutaneous abdominal and femoral AT. After the mixed meal, ATBF increased in both depots, but the peak was higher in the abdominal than the femoral depot. The metabolic study revealed similar patterns of systemic concentrations of glucose, insulin, triglycerides and free fatty acids (FFAs) in response to a meal ingestion in both depots. In addition, glucose uptake was similar in both depots in the fasting state and increased in both depots after the meal. FFA release was suppressed after the meal in both depots, but was significantly lower in femoral than in abdominal AT. Plasma triglyceride extraction increased in both depots after the meal, but tended to be lower in the femoral than in the abdominal AT. Tracer studies revealed that the only difference in fat uptake betwen both depots was the lower extraction of chylomicron-triglycerides by femoral compared to abdominal AT. Indeed, VLDL-triglyceride extraction and direct FFA uptake were comparable in the two depots. Thus, these findings indicate that femoral AT was less metabolically active than abdominal fat mostly in the postprandial context. Further studies are necessary to better understand the differences in metabolic physiology between the different AT depots.
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