High relative fat-free mass is important for maintaining serum albumin levels in patients with compensated liver cirrhosis

Figure 1 Correlation between fat-free mass (FFM) and height in volunteer males (right panel) and females (left panel). There was a significant positive correlation between FFM and height in each sex (male: r = 0.781, P<0.0001; female: r = 0.906, P<0.0001).

Figure 2 Distribution of fat-free mass (FFM) and relative FFM (rFFM) in cirrhotic patients. In FFM, the distributions among the sexes differed significantly (left two columns) (P<0.001). In contrast, when rFFM was applied for the same patients (right two columns); the dispersion did not differ significantly.

Figure 3 Correlation between rFFM with -albumin (right panel) and SD-albumin (left panel). In patients with average ALT levels >50 U/L, there was a significant correlation of rFFM with SD-albumin (r = 0.469, P = 0.006) and with -albumin (r = 0.415, P = 0.017).