New risk‐scoring system including non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease for predicting incident type 2 diabetes in East China: Shanghai Baosteel Cohort

AIMS/INTRODUCTION: The present study aimed to explore the incidence of type 2 diabetes, and to develop a risk‐scoring model for predicting diabetes among the adult health check‐up population in East China. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Participants from the Shanghai Baosteel Cohort (age ≥20 years) without diabetes at baseline were recruited in a 6‐year follow‐up study. In order to explore risk factors for diabetes, this cohort was categorized into two groups: new diabetes and no diabetes. Three models were developed by Cox regression analysis. The model accuracy was assessed using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. RESULTS: A total of 6,542 individuals were included in the Shanghai Baosteel Cohort Study. Of them, 368 (5.6%) developed type 2 diabetes at the end of the follow‐up period. Cox regression analysis found a close association between incident type 2 diabetes and several risk factors including non‐alcoholic fatty liver diseases at baseline. The Shanghai Baosteel Score including advanced age (2 points), hypertriglyceridemia (2 points), obesity (2 points), non‐alcoholic fatty liver diseases (2 points) and impaired fasting glucose (3 points) had a good diagnostic performance with estimated area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (0.724), sensitivity (57.9%) and specificity (72.2%) at a cut‐off point of >3. CONCLUSIONS: A risk‐scoring system including non‐alcoholic fatty liver diseases can help identify individuals at a high risk of diabetes in the East Chinese population.