The accuracy of anthropometric measurements of general and central obesity for the prediction of impaired glucose tolerance among the adult population of South India

BACKGROUND: The distribution of body fat and its variation is of great importance in determining the pathogenesis of insulin resistance. Central obesity has been recognized as an independent risk factor for diabetes. The objective of the study was to evaluate the predictive accuracy of various anthropometric measures of body fat in determining impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) or prediabetes among South Indian population. METHODOLOGY: This was a community-based comparative cross-sectional study where the anthropometric measures of a representative sample of 171 individuals with glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) in the range for IGT were compared with age- and gender-matched controls with HbA1c in the normal range. The predictive accuracy of the various anthropometric measures of obesity to identify individuals with IGT was estimated using the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. RESULTS: Patients with IGT in both genders had significantly higher BMI, waist circumference (WC), neck circumference (NC), and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR). ROC analysis revealed WHtR in females and NC among males to have the largest area under the curve for predicting IGT. In both genders, WC, WHtR, and NC had better predictive accuracy for prediabetes as compared to BMI and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR). CONCLUSION: It is suggested that the WHtR and WC are better screening tools for prediabetes in comparison to BMI and WHR among the South Indian population.