Association between metabolic scores for visceral fat and chronic kidney disease: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

IntroductionCentral obesity is closely linked to the risk of chronic kidney disease (CKD). This study aimed to evaluate the association between the novel central obesity index- metabolic score for visceral fat (METS-VF) and the risk of CKD in a Chinese population, and to compare its ability to predict CKD with other central obesity indices including waist circumference (WC), waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), lipid accumulation product (LAP), visceral adiposity index (VAI), a body shape index (ABSI), body roundness index (BRI), and cardiometabolic index (CMI).MethodsThis cross-sectional study included 8866 individuals from China. Demographic information, lifestyle data, and medical history data were collected, and physical examinations, anthropometric measurements and laboratory tests were performed for each participant. CKD was defined as an estimated GFR< 60 ml/min/1.73m2. Multivariate logistic regression models were used to evaluate the association between the METS-VF and the prevalence of CKD. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses were performed to assess and compare the predictive abilities of the central obesity indices and determine the optimal cut-off points.ResultsA graded increase in the prevalence of CKD was observed with increasing METS-VF tertiles. Moreover, the METS-VF was independently associated with the risk of CKD after adjustment for current smoking, current drinking, physical activity level, diabetes, hypertension, CVD history and BMI. Compared with participants with a METS-VF in the lowest tertile, the multivariate-adjusted ORs and 95% CIs for participants with a METS-VF in the highest tertile were 3.943 (2.435-6.385) in the overall population, 3.585 (1.585-8.109) for men and 4.627 (2.485-8.616) for women. Significant interactions were found between the METS-VF and the risk of CKD by age (P value for interaction = 0.023). In ROC analysis, the METS-VF had a higher AUC value than other indices for predicting CKD in men and had comparable or higher AUC than other indices for women. For predicting CKD, the optimal cut-off value of the METS-VF was 6.891 for men and 6.744 for women. The METS-VF yielded the greatest Youden index among all indices for both sexes.ConclusionA higher METS-VF was independently associated with a greater risk of CKD. The METS-VF can be a useful clinical indicator for identifying CKD, as it had superior predictive power for CKD when compared with other central obesity indices.

Could METS-VF provide a clue as to the formation of kidney stones?

“…This study offers a thorough examination of the correlation between METS-VF and the potential for kidney stone formation, an area that has seen relatively little prior investigation. This research is groundbreaking in that it marks the first investigation of the association between METS-VF and kidney stone development ( 24 ). This study provides crucial information on the possible link between the two conditions, as well as the potential consequences for diagnosing and treating kidney stones.…”

Investigating a novel surrogate indicator of adipose accumulation in relation to erectile dysfunction

“…Despite being a relatively new indicator that was first proposed in 2020, the METS-VF offers outstanding assessment capabilities across a wide range of disorders. In their study, Yu et al discovered that the METS-VF had a robust predictive capacity for chronic kidney disease (CKD) when in comparison to alternative evaluation markers of central adiposity [ 43 ]. Additionally, in comparison to other evaluation indicators of obesity, METS-VF demonstrates reliability and applicability as a predictor of hypertension and diabetes within the Chinese population [ 44 , 45 ].…”

The newly proposed Metabolic Score for Visceral Fat is a reliable tool for identifying non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, requiring attention to age-specific effects in both sexes

“…The results showed that METS-VF had the strongest correlation with increased VAT in subjects in the validation cohort and had better predictive performance for increased VAT compared to BMI, VAI, LAP, WC and WHtR. Given the high accuracy and computational simplicity of METS-VF in predicting visceral obesity, more researchers have explored and confirmed its superior value in assessing and predicting the risk of visceral obesity-related diseases such as hyperuricemia, diabetes, CKD, and hypertension compared to other VAT surrogate indicators ( 19 – 23 ). However, to date, the relationship between METS-VF and NAFLD has not been reported.…”