Association between the risk factors of cardiovascular diseases and insulin resistance

Abstract

To explore the association between risk factors of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and insulin resistance in a cross-sectional study. An investigation on risk factors of CVD was carried out using stratified-random sampling method among 1475 participants in Beijing. Homeostasis model assessment index (HOMA) was calculated to assess the insulin resistance in 1359 non-diabetic subjects aged 25 - 64 years. Insulin resistance was defined as HOMA index (fasting glucose in mmol/L x fasting insulin in mU/L/22.5) in the top quartile of the studied population. The degree of correlation between risk factors and natural logarithm of HOMA index in descending order were glucose, body mass index (BMI), triglyceride (TG), waist circumstance, high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C), uric acid, diastolic blood pressure, systolic blood pressure and total cholesterol (TC) (all P < 0.01). After adjusting factors as sex and age, glucose (r = 0.49), BMI (r = 0.44), TG (r = 0.44), waist circumstance (r = 0.41), uric acid (r = 0.33) and HDL-C (r = -0.32), the systolic blood pressure (r = 0.20), diastolic blood pressure (r = 0.18) and TC (r = 0.16) were independently correlated with HOMA index (P < 0.001). Sex (OR = 1.75), low HDL-C (OR = 1.80), hyperuricemia (OR = 2.11), high TG (OR = 2.14) and central obesity (OR = 2.68) appeared to be independently correlated to insulin resistance in multiple logistic regression analysis. The risk factors of CVD as low HDL-C, high TG, central obesity and hyperuricemia were independently correlated to insulin resistance.