Abstract

A total of 210 overweight and obese participants were recruited to investigate the association between various obesity parameters with insulin resistance (IR) in Jordanians. Weight, height, waist circumference (WC) and hip circumference were measured, and the corresponding body mass index (BMI), waist to hip ratio (WHR), and waist to height ratio (WHtR) were calculated. HOMA-IR was calculated from the corresponding fasting blood sugar and plasma insulin levels for each participant. The correlation as well as the prediction ability of obesity parameters for the occurrence of insulin resistance was evaluated statistically. Pearson and point-biserial correlation coefficients revealed that only BMI, WC and WHtR correlated with insulin resistance. However, the strength of correlation appeared to be gender-dependent. Logistic regression and ROC curve analysis showed that BMI is the best parameter to predict insulin resistance in the male population followed by WHtR. In females however, WHtR appeared to be a better classifier than BMI. In conclusion, BMI and WHtR were found to be the most significant obesity parameters for predicting insulin resistance in Jordanians male and female populations, respectively.

Key words: Obesity, body mass index, waist circumference, waist to height ratio, insulin resistance.

Abbreviation

BMI, Body mass index; HOMA, homeostatic model assessment;IR, insulin resistance; ROC, receiver-operating characteristic; T2DM, type 2 diabetes mellitus; WC, waist circumference; WHR, waist to hip ratio; WHtR, waist to height ratio.