A population-based study of TyG index distribution and its relationship to cardiometabolic risk factors in children and adolescents

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to present age- and sex-specific distributions of the triglyceride-glucose (TyG) index and to evaluate their relationship with cardiometabolic risk factors in children and adolescents. A total of 7404 participants aged 10–18 years from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Survey were included as the reference population. The TyG index was calculated as ln(fasting triglyceride [mg/dL] × fasting glucose [mg/dL]/2). The percentile of the TyG index exhibited a steady linear relationship with age for both sexes. TyG index significantly correlated with waist circumference (WC) standard deviation score (SDS; r = 0.110, p < 0.001), systolic blood pressure (SBP; r = 0.104, p < 0.001), diastolic blood pressure (DBP; r = 0.083, p < 0.001), glucose (r = 0.220, p < 0.001), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C; r = − 0.325, p < 0.001), and triglycerides (TG; r = 0.926, p < 0.001). Multiple linear regression analysis revealed that the TyG index was significantly associated with WC SDS (β = 0.116, p < 0.001), SBP (β = 2.009, p < 0.001), DBP (β = 1.464, p < 0.001), glucose (β = 3.376, p < 0.001), HDL-C (β = − 6.431, p < 0.001), and TG (β = 85.518, p < 0.001). Our results suggest that the TyG index has a steady linear distribution for sex and age in children and adolescents and constitutes an indicator for predicting metabolic disorders that could lead to cardiovascular disease later in life.

Comparison of the ability of HOMA-IR, VAI, and TyG indexes to predict metabolic syndrome in children with obesity: a cross-sectional study

“…The TyG index is associated with insulin resistance and dyslipidemia and has been recommended as a good indicator of the presence of cardiometabolic risk factors, particularly insulin sensitivity [ 11 , 18 , 34 , 35 ]. Besides, it has been reported that the TyG index has a high sensitivity for MetS in children and adolescents with obesity [ 11 , 19 , 36 ]. Similar to our result, Brito et al [ 20 ] reported in a systematic review that in the ROC curve analyses performed to predict the cardiometabolic risk factors, the TyG index threshold values ranged from 4.65 to 8.66, and the cut-off point in girls was higher than in boys.…”

“…All these findings explain why HOMA-IR levels and cut-off values for MetS are different in boys and girls with obesity. Another disadvantage of HOMA-IR is its limited usage due to cost, requiring standardization for insulin, a labile hormone [19,34]. It was shown that the difference in insulin sensitivity in children with obesity between the sexes is due to phenotypic characteristics, that there may be a gene responsible for it, and that girls have higher insulin resistance [44].…”

“…Visceral adiposity index (VAI) which is used to calculate cardiometabolic risk by anthropometric measurements and blood lipid parameters is a useful tool for detecting MetS in children and adolescents [12][13][14][15]. Recently, the use of the triglyceride glucose (TyG) index, a product of fasting glucose and triglyceride and a useful predictor of cardiometabolic risk factors in childhood and adolescence has also increased [16][17][18][19], because, they are more easily accessible assessment tools both at the outpatient clinics and at the community level, and are low cost [20]. Although VAI and TyG have proven to be useful in determining the risk of cardiometabolic disease in the adult population, few studies have been conducted on children with obesity.…”

Metabolic Syndrome and Cardiometabolic Risk Factors in the Mixed Hypercholesterolemic Populations with Respect to Gender, Age, and Obesity in Asir, Saudi Arabia

“…MetS is a research point of interest for several years as it affects more than 25% of the total adult population in the world due to its direct relation to CVDs [ 10 ]. This study was the first in Saudi Arabia to investigate the susceptibility of CVDs in different populations, depending on the cardiometabolic risk factors in the MetS’-related criteria: dyslipidemia, diabetes/insulin resistance, hypertension, anemia, hypothyroidism, hypovitaminosis-D, and creatinemia, and clarifies the prevalence of MetS/CVDs in either sex before and after the age of 40 [ 40 ].…”

Association of the triglyceride-glucose index with weight-adjusted appendicular lean mass in Chinese adolescents aged 12–18 years old

“…Traditionally, the primary surrogate marker to evaluate IR is homeostasis model assessment of IR (HOMA-IR) 9 . However, not only various physiological characteristics during puberty 10 , 11 , but the big change of basic characteristics like BMI 12 at puberty make it hard to evaluate IR in children and adolescents. The triglyceride-glucose index (TyG index), easily calculated using fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and triglyceride (TG) levels, has been regarded as an alternative surrogate marker for appraising IR, and the accuracy of TyG index to diagnose the IR was consistent with that of HOMA-IR 14 .…”