Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2010 Sep 28:10:579.
doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-10-579.

The relationship of high sensitivity C-reactive protein to percent body fat mass, body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, and waist circumference in a Taiwanese population

Cheng-Chieh Lin  1 , Sharon L R Kardia, Chia-Ing Li, Chiu-Shong Liu, Ming-May Lai, Wen-Yuan Lin, Pei-Chia Chang, Yih-Dar Lee, Ching-Chu Chen, Chih-Hsueh Lin, Chuan-Wei Yang, Chih-Yi Hsiao, Walter Chen, Tsai-Chung Li
Affiliations

The relationship of high sensitivity C-reactive protein to percent body fat mass, body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, and waist circumference in a Taiwanese population

Cheng-Chieh Lin et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: High-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) is an easily measured inflammatory biomarker. This study compared the association of percent body fat mass (%FM), body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) with hs-CRP in a Taiwanese population.

Methods: A total of 1669 subjects aged 40-88 years were recruited in 2004 in a metropolitan city in Taiwan. The relationships between obesity indicators and a high level of hs-CRP were examined using multivariate logistic regression analysis. The upper quartile of the hs-CRP distributions was defined as the high category group. The areas under the curve (AUCs) of the receiver operating characteristic curves were calculated for all obesity indicators to compare their relative ability to correctly classify subjects with a high level of hs-CRP.

Results: After multivariate adjustment, the odds ratio for %FM was the only significant indicator that was associated with a high level of hs-CRP in men (1.55, 95% CI: 1.07-2.25). All indicators were associated with a high level of hs-CRP in women. In men, the AUCs for %FM were significantly higher than those for BMI, WHR, and WC, when demographic and lifestyle behaviors were considered (p < 0.001 for all comparisons), but they were not significantly different in females.

Conclusions: Our study demonstrates that %FM is the only obesity indicator that is strongly associated with a high level of hs-CRP after adjusting for sociodemographic factors, lifestyle behaviors and components of metabolic syndrome in both genders in a Taiwanese population aged forty years and over. In men, %FM had the greatest ability to classify subjects with a high level of hs-CRP when only demographic and lifestyle behaviors were considered. Our study finding has important implications for the screening of obesity in community settings.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The receiver operating characteristics curves of BMI, WHR, WC and %FM for males.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The receiver operating characteristics curves of BMI, WHR, WC and %FM for females.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Kannel WB, D'Agostino RB, Cobb JL. Effect of weight on cardiovascular disease. Am J Clin Nutr. 1996;63(Suppl 4):19–22. - PubMed
    1. Carroll KK. Obesity as a risk factor for certain types of cancer. Lipids. 1998;33:1055–1059. doi: 10.1007/s11745-998-0305-8. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Alberti KG, Zimmet PZ. Definition, diagnosis and classification of diabetes mellitus and its complications. Part 1: diagnosis and classification of diabetes mellitus provisional report of a WHO consultation. Diabet Med. 1998;15:539–553. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1096-9136(199807)15:7<539::AID-DIA668>3.0.CO;2-S. - DOI - PubMed
    1. WHO. Obesity: Preventing and managing the global epidemic. Geneva: WHO; 1998. - PubMed
    1. Kuczmarki RJ, Flegal KM, Campbell SM, Johnson CL. Increasing prevalence of overweight among US adults. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, 1960 to 1991. JAMA. 1998;22:39–47. - PubMed

Publication types

Substances