The relationship between waist circumference and metabolic risk factors: Cohorts of European and Chinese descent

doi:10.1053/meta.2002.34042

Metabolism

Volume 51, Issue 11, November 2002, Pages 1427-1432

https://doi.org/10.1053/meta.2002.34042 Get rights and content

Abstract

Waist circumference (WC) may be the best anthropometric index for identifying individuals at risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes mellitus (DM). The objectives of this study were to determine if the relationship between WC and metabolic risk factors is similar in men and women of Chinese and European descent, and to assess the effect of ethnicity on these relationships. Apparently healthy men and women of Chinese (n = 92) and European (n = 99) descent were recruited from hospital staff and assessed for anthropometric variables and blood pressure (BP), lipids, insulin, and glucose. The study cohort was stratified by sex, and regression analyses were performed with the various metabolic risk factors as the outcome and WC and ethnicity as predictors. Chinese men and women had significantly lower WC than European men and women. Age and metabolic risk factors were similar between the 2 ethnic groups except for BP. Metabolic risk factors significantly correlated with WC within each gender and ethnic cohort. In men, ethnicity was an independent predictor for total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), triglycerides (TG), and the ratio of TC to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) after controlling for WC. In women, ethnicity significantly interacted with WC as an independent predictor of TG, TC:HDL-C ratio, insulin, and glucose. As ethnic descent modifies the relationship between WC and metabolic risk factors, current WC targets derived from relationships in European populations are not applicable to Chinese men and women. Therefore, ethnic background should be considered when using WC as a marker of cardiovascular risk.

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Citation Excerpt :
Although, CUN-BAE seems to be a good predictor of body fat percentage, the present study shows that it cannot be the best predictor of CVD risks among Iranian populations. More possible reasons for such inconsistency among different studies might be the ethnic descent [50], population dependency for the ability of WC to predict CVD risks [48], which varies from race to race [51]. Furthermore, measuring WC by using different methods, different definitions of dyslipidemia, assessing different age and BMI range or sex, may be other sources for discrepancies among different studies.
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To examine the association of visceral adiposity as measured by VFA and WC with lipid and glucose metabolic biomarkers in abdominally obese Chinese adults, and to assess whether WC could be an indicator of visceral fat.
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^☆: Supported by the Medical Research Council of Canada and Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (S.A.L.) and the University of British Columbia's Faculty of Medicine (M.M.C.).

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The relationship between waist circumference and metabolic risk factors: Cohorts of European and Chinese descent☆

Abstract