Normal-weight central obesity is associated with metabolic disorders in Chinese postmenopausal women

This cross-sectional study examined whether normal-weight central obesity, defined as a high waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), is associated with metabolic disorders in Chinese postmenopausal women.

We recruited 634 community-dwelling postmenopausal women with a normal body mass index (BMI) who participated in an annual health checkup. Normal-weight obesity (NWO) was defined as a normal BMI and WHtR in the highest tertile of the study population. The updated National Cholesterol Education Program/Adult Treatment Panel III criteria were used to assess metabolic abnormalities, and binary logistic regression models were employed to estimate the associations between NWO and metabolic disorders.

The prevalence of each metabolic disorder showed a graded increase (p<0.05) across the WHtR tertiles in the study population. NWO was significantly associated with some non-adipose components of metabolic syndrome (MetS) (p<0.05) after adjusting for age, smoking status, drinking status, inflammatory markers, total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-c), body fat percentage (BF%), and the remaining non-adipose MetS components. Participants in the highest WHtR tertile had a higher odds ratio [2.00 (1.19- 3.33), p<0.01] for the presence of at least two non-adipose MetS components than those in the lowest tertile after adjusting for age, lifestyle factors, inflammatory markers, TC, LDL-c, and BF%.

NWO is significantly associated with metabolic disorders, suggesting that a clinical assessment of abdominal obesity indices should be conducted in postmenopausal women, even in those with a normal BMI.