Usefulness of body and visceral fat determined by bioimpedancemetry versus body mass index and waist circumference in the identification of elevated values of different atherogenesis risk scales.

Introduction: Obesity and atherogenesis are two highly prevalent pathological processes worldwide that also share several pathophysiological mechanisms.

Objectives: Descriptive and cross-sectional study in 8,590 Spanish workers (4,104 men and 4,486 women) with an average age of 41.5years, in which the usefulness of four scales of overweight and obesity such as body mass index (BMI), waist circumference and percentages of body and visceral fat determined by bioimpedance measurement to identify high levels of atherogenic risk determined by atherogenic dyslipidemia (AD), lipid triad (LT) and several atherogenic indices is assessed.

Results: All the overweight and obesity scales show a predictive value between moderate and good, determined by the AUC of the ROC curves, with values ranging from 0.727 to 0.886 in women and 0.676 to 0.885 in men. Of all of them, the one with the highest AUC is visceral fat with values exceeding 0.800 and the lowest are for BMI. In all cases, the AUC is higher in women.

Conclusions: The overweight and obesity scales analysed (BMI, waist circumference and percentage of body and visceral fat) show AUCs for predicting atherogenic risk between moderate and high, with visceral fat being the most useful of all.