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Exp Clin Endocrinol Diabetes 2006; 114(6): 310-315
DOI: 10.1055/s-2006-924123
Article

J. A. Barth Verlag in Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York

Waist/Height Ratio as a Better Predictor of Type 2 Diabetes Compared to Body Mass Index in Tehranian Adult Men - a 3.6-Year Prospective Study

F. Hadaegh1 , A. Zabetian1 , H. Harati1 , F. Azizi1
  • 1Endocrine Research Center, Shaheed Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Further Information

Publication History

Received: December 18, 2005 First decision: March 12, 2006

Accepted: March 16, 2006

Publication Date:
26 July 2006 (online)

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Introduction

Obesity being associated with diabetes ([Bermudez and Tucker, 2001]; [Berber et al., 2001]), cardiovascular disease ([Rexrode et al., 2001]), hypertension ([Beegom et al., 1995]), dyslipidemia ([Okosun et al., 2000]; [Berber et al., 2001]), and some cancers ([Fryzek et al., 2005]) has many negative effects on health; it is also associated with increased mortality ([Must and Lipman, 1999]). The prevalence of obesity has increased dramatically in industrialized and developed countries ([Mokdad et al., 2000]; [de Onis and Blossner, 2000]), and overweight and obesity having been reported by the World Health Organization to be an escalating epidemic, worldwide ([World Health Organization, 1997]).

The majority of studies have recommended waist circumference (WC) as a better indicator of abdominal obesity and a better predictor for diabetes than other anthropometric variables ([Wei et al., 1997]; [Janssen et al., 2002]). Others have shown that the waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is the best predictive anthropometric variable for development of type 2 diabetes ([Esmaillzadeh et al., 2004]; [Snijder et al., 2004]). Recently, a few studies have recommended waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) as the best diabetes predictor ([Hsieh and Yoshinaga, 1995]).

Since it has been proven that the predictive power of anthropometric variables is population-dependent ([Molarius and Seidell, 1998]) and varies between different ethnic groups ([Gallagher et al., 1996]), and the prevalence of obesity has increased dramatically in industrialized and developed countries, as well as in Iran ([Pishdad, 1996]; [Sarraf-Zadegan et al., 1999]), the present study was designed to identify the best anthropometric variable among WC, WHR, and WHtR as compared to body mass index (BMI) for predicting diabetes risk in Iranian men.

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F. Azizi

Endocrine Research Center
Shaheed Beheshti University of Medical Sciences

PO Box 19 395-4763

Tehran

I. R. Iran.

Phone: + 98 21 22 40 93 09

Fax: + 98 21 22 40 24 63

Email: Azizi@erc-iran.com

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