Evaluation of different anthropometric indices and association with metabolic syndrome in community-dwelling older adults: Bushehr Elderly Health (BEH) program

Abstract

This study was conducted to evaluate the usefulness of different anthropometric indices and to determine optimal cut-off points for the identification of metabolic syndrome (MetS) in community-dwelling older adults. Our investigation performed within the framework of Bushehr Elderly Health (BEH) Program as a prospective population-based cohort study on a representative sample of the older adults (≥60 years) in the urban population of Bushehr (the south of Iran). Adjusted relative risk (RR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) of the anthropometric indices in association with MetS were calculated. Age, sex, education, smoking habits, and physical activity were used as confounders for multivariate analysis. Additionally, areas under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves (AUCs) were analyzed to compare their predictive capacity for MetS. Of the 3000 participants in phase I of this study, 51.5% (1545) were female and 48.5% (1455) were male. In ROC analysis performed on both men and women, Body roundness index with the largest AUCs had the highest discriminatory power for MetS (0.811 and 0.794, respectively). In women, Waist-to-height ratio with AUC = 0.636 also had the greatest predictive power for MetS. The highest adjusted RRs for MetS were observed for the following indices: Waist-to-height ratio (RR = 15.24), Fat-to-muscle ratio (RR = 4.341), and Waist-to-hip ratio (RR = 3.14). Body mass index is not a good indicator to evaluate of adipose tissue, but new anthropometric indices such as body roundness index and traditional ones such as waist-to-height ratio can efficiently predict the risk of metabolic syndrome in elderly population of Iran. • BMI is not a good indicator for adipose tissue assessment in the elderly. • BRI and WHtR are useful in predicting the risk of MetS in the elderly population. • CUN-BAE has the highest predictive power among people with low HDL in MetS.