Correlation of triglyceride by HDL ratio as a marker of insulin resistance with BMI, waist to hip ratio, waist to height ratio and waist circumference, in South Indian population

Context: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) and its pre runner, insulin resistance (IR) has become a pandemic problem, including the developing countries. Hence cost effective methods like anthropometric measures are needed to assess insulin resistance. Aims: 1) To study the pattern of dyslipidemia in diabetics and non diabetic subjects. 2) To correlate the association of anthropometric markers (Body mass index (BMI), Waist/Hip ratio (WHR), Waist/height ratio (WHtR), Waist circumference (WC) with Triglyceride (TG) / High density lipoprotein (HDL) ratio as a surrogate marker of IR. Settings and Design: 50 diabetics and 50 non diabetic subjects were enrolled prospectively and anthropometric and laboratory data were collected and analyzed in a tertiary care hospital. Methods and Material: Statistical analysis used: Mean, Standard deviation, Frequency and Percentage. Pearson’s correlation, Independent sample t test, Mann WhitneyU test. Results: Elevated TC, LDL, TG/HDL, WHR and low HDL were significantly associated with diabetics. WC showed maximum correlation with TG/HDL among anthropometric markers in the whole study group and both study groups separately. The correlation of TG/HDL with WHtR (r=0.110) was higher in controls when compared with cases (r= 0.23) indicating that WHtR has high levels of correlation with IR in obese non diabetic population. Conclusions: In this study, the above anthropometric measurements showed positive correlation with TG/HDL ratio. WC showed maximum correlation, though statistically not significant. We suggest using anthropometric measurements (WC, BMI, WHR, WHtR) as inexpensive and easy methods in clinical and epidemiological fields.