Evaluation of the appropriate predictive contributor and diagnostic threshold for the cardio-metabolic syndrome in Chinese Uyghur adults

BACKGROUND: Several epidemiological studies have suggested that optimal obesity and visceral adiposity indicators and their cut-off values to predict cardio-metabolic risks varied among different ethnic groups. However, few studies have investigated the associations of anthropometric indices with cardio-metabolic risks in Chinese Uyghur adults, and the results were inconsistent. METHODS: Between May and September 2016, a total of 4664 subjects aged ≥18 years old were recruited from Northwest China. Anthropometric indices and cardio-metabolic risk factors were measured by trained personnel. Partial correlation analyses and logistic regression analyses were used to evaluate the associations of anthropometric indices with cardio-metabolic risk factors. Receiver operating characteristic analysis was used to compare the abilities of different anthropometric indices to predict cardio-metabolic risk factors, and to determine the optimal cut-off values. RESULTS: The prevalence of metabolic syndrome was 39.41% in Uyghur adults from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Waist circumference (WC) performed better than other obesity indices in predicting the cardio-metabolic risk factors, and the optimal cut-off value of WC to diagnose metabolic syndrome risk factors was 86.50 cm for women and 90.50 cm for men. CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggests that WC had the strongest predictive power for identifying cardio-metabolic risks in Xinjiang Uyghur adults. Further well-designed longitudinal studies are needed to confirm our findings. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-019-6803-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.