Waist/height ratio compared with other anthropometric indicators of obesity as a predictor of high coronary risk

Abstract

Objective. this study compares the performance of the waist-height ratio with other anthropometric indicators of obesity: waist circumference (WC), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), conicity index (C Index), and body mass index (BMI) for discriminating the level of coronary risk (HCR). Methods. a cross-sectional study of a subset of the participants enrolled on the "Monitoring Cardiovascular Diseases and Diabetes in Brazil" project (MONIT) was carried out in Salvador, Brazil (2000). The total sample comprised 968 people (391 men and 577 women) aged 30 to 74. First, the total area was calculated under the ROC curves between the C Index, WHR, waist/height ratio, WC, BMI and HCR at a 95% confidence interval. Sensitivity and specificity were then calculated. Analyses were carried out using STATA 7.0. Results. Areas under the ROC curves used as indicators of obesity were C Index 0.80, WHR 0.76, waist/height ratio 0.76, WC 0.73, and BMI 0.64 for men and Index C 0.75, WHR 0.75, waist/height ratio 0.69, WC 0.66 and BMI 0.59 for women. Conclusion. Indicators of abdominal obesity are better at discriminating HCR than the usual obesity indicator (BMI). The waist/height ratios are closer to the results of other studies. Furthermore, the waist/height ratio whose statistical significance justifies its use.