Novel and traditional anthropometric indices for identifying arterial stiffness in overweight and obese adults

Obesity and arterial stiffness are both independently associated with cardiovascular risk. New anthropometric indices can better reflect abdominal obesity than traditional anthropometric indices. Thus, we hypothesized that compared with conventional parameters, these newly developed anthropometric parameters were more accurate to identify arterial stiffness among overweight and obesity population.Cross-sectional data on socio-demographic, lifestyle, clinical characteristics and biochemical measurements were collected for 1442 Chinese obese and overweight adults. Six anthropometric indices including a body shape index (ABSI), body mass index (BMI), ABSI combined with BMI, body roundness index (BRI), waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio were calculated. Carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cf-PWV) was detected in all subjects. Meanwhile, visceral fat area (VFA) was quantificationally measured by CT. Partial Spearman correlation coefficients were used to clarify the association between anthropometric measures with cf-PWV. Logistic regression analyses were used to identify to the association between anthropometric measures and arterial stiffness.After adjusting for covariates, BRI had the strongest correlation with cf-PWV and VFA in all anthropometric indices. Multivariate regression analysis showed VFA (β = 0.322, p < 0.001) and BRI (β = 0.307, p < 0.001) remained independently associated with cf-PWV. BRI had a highest odds ratios in all anthropometric indices (OR = 1.543, p < 0.001). ABSI only displayed a weak correlation with arterial stiffness. Meanwhile, BRI had the highest area under curve for abnormal cf-PWV, and the optimum cutoff value was a BRI ≥5.4.BRI was found to have a close relationship with arterial stiffness in overweight and obesity people. However, ABSI was weakly correlated with arterial stiffness, but not better than traditional anthropometric indices.