Relation of body composition indexes to cardiovascular disease risk factors in young adults

To evaluate the relationship of body composition indexes with altered metabolic analytical parameters that show higher risk of cardiovascular disease in young adults.

A cross-sectional study. Sample of 1351 young adults, different body composition parameters were obtained such as Waist Circumference (WC), Hip Circumference (HC), Body Mass Index (BMI), Body Fat% (BF%), Waist-to-height Ratio (WHtR), and Waist-Hip Ratio (WHR), conicity index (C-Index), body surface area (BSA), abdominal volume index (AVI) and deep abdominal adipose-tissue (AT). Areas under receiver operating characteristic curves (AUCs) and odds ratios for the parameters were analyzed and their optimal cut-offs. Separately a MANOVA was applied to altered metabolic analytical parameters and two body composition indexes (BMI and BSA) and their interaction.

BMI correlate significantly with metabolic analytical parameters (FPG r=0.08, TCh r=0.14, TGL r=0.23, HDL-C r=-0.23, LDL-C r=0.2, UA r=0.22, All P<0.01), BSA correlate with all (All P<0.001) except FPG. BMI and BSA correlate significantly with all metabolic analytical parameters (All P<0.001). The BMI individually predicts the changes of the six metabolic analytical parameters as a set [Wilk's λ=0.89, F(18,1570)=3.4, P<0.0001], but not BSA [Wilk's λ=0.98, F(6,555)=1.4, P=0.18], the interaction between these two indexes (BMI and BSA altered in the same individual) significantly predicts changes of the six metabolic analytical parameters of cardiovascular disease risk [Wilk's λ=0.97, F(6,555)=2.3, P=0.03].

BMI and BSA correlate with cardiovascular disease risk factor. They are superior to WC, WHtR, WHR, BF%, C-index, AVI and AT.