Evaluation of Different Anthropometric Indicators for Screening for Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Elderly Individuals

Abstract

Objective. To explore the anthropometric indicators suitable for screening for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in the elderly population. Methods. This cross-sectional study screened subjects over 65 years, who had undergone a physical examination in 2019. Their height, weight, waist circumference, and fasting blood glucose and triglyceride levels were measured. Body mass index (BMI), waist circumstance (WC), waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), relative fat mass (RFM), ponderal index (PI), conicity index (CI), lipid accumulation product (LAP), and body shape index (ABSI) were calculated. Statistical analyses were performed using the Chi-square test, logistic regression, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Subjects. Of a total of 4985 subjects, 1173 diagnosed with NAFLD and 3812 without NAFLD were included. Results. The NAFLD group had increased BMI, WC, WHtR, RFM, PI, CI, and LAP. ABSI was only significantly different in males between the groups. Logistic regression analysis showed that RFM was an effective prognostic factor for males with NAFLD, and LAP, BMI, and WC were effective prognostic factors for females. ROC curve analysis showed that LAP played a significant role in the prediction of NAFLD. Conclusion. LAP is closely related to the occurrence of NAFLD and could be an efficient screening and treatment tool for NAFLD in the elderly people. Lay Summary. We conducted a screening and study of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in the elderly population by determining the association between obesity indexes and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. We found that LAP is practical, easy-to-measure tool for screening and studying NAFLD in the high-risk community elderly population, making it a valuable indicator in research.

The usefulness of obesity and lipid-related indices to predict the presence of Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

“…Their findings contradicted the research of Lin et al, who found that the best indicator of NAFLD screening was AVI, not HSI [22]. Additionally, in a recent study, Zhang et al evaluated the predictive value of relative fat mass, WC, ABSI, WHtR, COI, ponderal index, BMI, and LAP for NAFLD in the elderly; their study showed that LAP was the best marker of these parameters for predicting NAFLD [23]. This study confirms the conclusion of Zhang et al, and in further analysis, it was found that LAP was superior to the TyG index, WHtR, ABSI, COI, BMI, TG/HDL-C ratio, WC, VAI, TG, and BRI in both males and females.…”

“…At present, there are very few comparative studies on the prediction of NAFLD by obesity and lipid-related indices. The conclusions of several existing studies are controversial, and do not include TyG indexrelated parameters [21][22][23]. According to some recent studies, TyG index-related parameters are promising new indicators for predicting NAFLD [14,24].…”

Comparison of Eleven Anthropometric Indices for the Screening for Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Patients with Diabetes

“…The values of the 11 obesity indices analyzed resulted higher in the NAFLD than the NO-NAFLD group as con rmed in other studies. A previous study showed good discriminatory ability of BMI, WHtR, CI, LAP, and ABSI were measured in the diagnosis of NAFLD 9 , and another study reported that TyG level is an independent risk factor of NAFLD, and TyG index plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between WHtR and NAFLD 24 . In patients with type 2 diabetes, the non-invasive HIS score is considered as an easy, convenient and inexpensive screening for fatty liver 25 .…”

“…For example, the visceral adiposity index (VAI) and the triglycerides and glucose (TyG) index have been applied in a NAFLD-related prediction models 6 . Besides, body roundness index (BRI), a body shape index (ABSI), conicity index (CI), Clínica Universidad de Navarra-body adiposity estimator (CUN-BAE), triponderal mass index (TMI) have proved to be effective predictors of MetS and NAFLD [7][8][9] .…”

Anthropometric indicators of obesity. Are the new indicators a better predictor of body fat content than BMI?

“…Kobo i wsp. [31] stwierdzili, że ten nowy wskaźnik zapewnia wysoką przewidywalność dyslipidemii i zespołu metabolicznego, a także niealkoholowej stłuszczeniowej choroby wątroby (NAFLD) [32].…”