The “cardiometabolic index” as a new marker determined by adiposity and blood lipids for discrimination of diabetes mellitus

BACKGROUND: Patients with type 2 diabetes are prone to have obesity and dyslipidemia. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of cardiometabolic index (CMI), a new index calculated as the product of waist-to-height ratio and triglycerides-to-HDL cholesterol ratio, for discrimination of diabetes.

METHODS: Subjects were 10,196 Japanese women and men who had received annual health checkups at their workplaces. Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) analysis and logistic regression analysis were performed to determine relationships of CMI with hyperglycemia and diabetes.

RESULTS: In women and men, hemoglobin A1c was significantly higher in the highest quartile of CMI than in the other lower quartiles. By using ROC analysis, the cutoff values of CMI for hyperglycemia and diabetes were determined to be 0.799 and 0.800, respectively, in women and to be 1.625 and 1.748, respectively, in men. When these cutoff values were used in logistic regression analysis, there were strong associations of CMI with hyperglycemia and diabetes in women and men (odds ratio with 95% confidence interval of subjects with vs. subjects without high CMI: 6.98 [4.68-10.42] for hyperglycemia and 14.61 [5.95-35.88] for diabetes in women; 4.42 [3.66-5.35] for hyperglycemia and 5.38 [3.89-7.44] for diabetes in men).

CONCLUSION: The results suggest that CMI is a useful new index, reflecting both adiposity and blood lipids, for discrimination of diabetes.