Waist-to-height ratio and body roundness index: superior predictors of insulin resistance in Chinese adults and take gender and age into consideration.
Level 4 - case-series / case-control
Cross-sectional diagnostic/observational study
PubMed 39744239 · doi:10.3389/fnut.2024.1480707
What was done
In a prospective cross-sectional study conducted across three hospitals in China, researchers evaluated 1,592 adults (531 without insulin resistance and 1,061 with insulin resistance) to assess the ability of seven anthropometric indicators to predict insulin resistance (IR, assessed by HOMA-IR). The evaluated indices were body mass index (BMI), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), waist-to-height ratio (WtHR), conicity index (CI), A Body Shape Index (ABSI), body roundness index (BRI), and abdominal volume index (AVI). Associations and predictive performance were evaluated via logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, including age and gender stratifications.
What was found
After adjusting for confounders, all anthropometric indices except ABSI were positively associated with IR in the overall cohort and across gender and age subgroups (OR > 1, p < 0.05). WtHR and BRI achieved the highest predictive accuracy overall, each with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.711. The optimal cut-off values were 0.53 for WtHR and 4.00 for BRI. In stratified analyses, BMI, WtHR, BRI, and AVI all demonstrated AUC values > 0.700 in women and in participants younger than 60 years.
Why it matters
Simple, non-invasive measures of central adiposity like waist-to-height ratio and body roundness index can aid low-cost early screening for insulin resistance in routine clinical practice.
Limits
The cross-sectional design cannot establish causality or temporal direction. The study evaluated only Chinese hospital-based participants, limiting generalizability to other ethnicities and general community populations. Exact odds ratios, confidence intervals, sensitivity, and specificity were not reported in the abstract.
Cited by
- partial If a person's waist circumference is more than half their height, there is roughly a 90% chance they have insulin resistance.