Association between Chinese visceral adiposity index and risk of stroke incidence in middle-aged and elderly Chinese population: evidence from a large national cohort study

BACKGROUND: Abdominal obesity has long been considered as a crucial risk factor of stroke. Chinese visceral adiposity index (CVAI), a novel surrogate indicator of abdominal obesity, has been confirmed as a better predictor for coronary heart disease than other indicators in Asian population. However, the data on the relationship of CVAI with stroke is limited. The objective of our study is evaluating the relationship between CVAI and stroke incidence. METHODS: In the present study, we enrolled 7242 middle-aged and elderly residents from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) and placed them into groups according to quartile of CVAI. The outcome of interest was stroke. Kaplan–Meier curves were used to estimate the cumulative incidences of stroke. Cox regression analyses and multivariable-adjusted restricted cubic spline (RCS) curves were performed to evaluate the relationship between CVAI and incident stroke. Multiple sensitivity analyses and subgroups analyses were performed to test the robustness of the findings. RESULTS: During a median 84 months of follow-up, 612 (8.45%) participants experienced incident stroke, and the incidences of stroke for participants in quartiles (Q) 1–4 of CVAI were 4.42%, 7.29%, 9.06% and 13.04%, respectively. In the fully adjusted model, per 1.0-SD increment in CVAI has a significant increased risk of incident stroke: hazard ratio (HR) [95% confidence interval (CI)] was 1.17 (1.07–1.28); compared with participants in Q1 of CVAI, the HRs (95% CI) of incident stroke among those in Q2–4 were 1.47 (1.10–1.95), 1.62 (1.22–2.15), and 1.70 (1.28–2.27), respectively. Subgroups analyses suggested the positive association was significant in male participants, without diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. The findings were robust in all the sensitivity analyses. Additional, RCS curves showed a significant dose-response relationship of CVAI with risk of incident stroke (P for non-linear trend = 0.319). CONCLUSION: Increased CVAI is significantly associated with higher risk of stroke incidence, especially in male individuals, without hypertension, diabetes and heart disease. The findings suggest that baseline CVAI is a reliable and effective biomarker for risk stratification of stroke, which has far-reaching significance for primary prevention of stroke and public health. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12967-023-04309-x.