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
Comparative Study
. 2021 Feb 8;31(2):518-527.
doi: 10.1016/j.numecd.2020.09.032. Epub 2020 Oct 5.

Sagittal abdominal diameter and waist circumference appear to be equally good as identifiers of cardiometabolic risk

Grith Møller  1 , Christian Ritz  2 , Louise Kjølbæk  2 , Stine Vuholm  2 , Sanne Kellebjerg Korndal  3 , Thomas Meinert Larsen  2 , Oluf Pedersen  4 , Wim Saris  5 , Arne Astrup  2 , Lotte Lauritzen  2 , Mette Kristensen  6 , Mads Vendelbo Lind  2
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Sagittal abdominal diameter and waist circumference appear to be equally good as identifiers of cardiometabolic risk

Grith Møller et al. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. .

Abstract

Background and aims: Body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) are commonly used markers of cardiometabolic risk. However, sagittal abdominal diameter (SAD) has been proposed as a possibly more sensitive marker of intra-abdominal obesity. We investigated differences in how SAD, WC, and BMI were correlated with cardiometabolic risk markers.

Methods and results: This cross-sectional study investigated anthropometric and metabolic baseline measurements of individuals from six trials. Multiple linear regression and (partial) correlation coefficients were used to investigate associations between SAD, WC, and BMI and cardiometabolic risk markers, including components of the metabolic syndrome as well as insulin resistance, blood lipids, and lowgrade inflammation. In total 1516 mostly overweight or obese individuals were included in the study. SAD was significantly more correlated with TG than WC for all studies, and overall increase in correlation was 0.05 (95% CI (0.02; 0.08). SAD was significantly more correlated with the markers TG and DBP 0.11 (95% CI (0.08, 0.14)) and 0.04 (95% CI (0.006, 0.07), respectively compared to BMI across all or most studies.

Conclusion: This study showed that no single anthropometric indicator was consistently more strongly correlated across all markers of cardiometabolic risk. However, SAD was significantly more strongly correlated with TG than WC and significantly more strongly correlated with DBP and TG than BMI.

Keywords: Abdominal obesity; Anthropometry; Body mass index; Insulin resistance; Obesity; Sagittal abdominal diameter.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest None of the authors has any conflict of interest in regards to this work.

Comment in

  • How well does anthropometry identify cardiometabolic risks among treated patients?
    Kahn HS. Kahn HS. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 2021 Jun 7;31(6):1939. doi: 10.1016/j.numecd.2021.02.014. Epub 2021 Feb 24. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 2021. PMID: 33832842 No abstract available.
  • Authors' reply to Kahn's comment.
    Møller G, Ritz C, Kjølbæk L, Vuholm S, Korndal SK, Larsen TM, Pedersen O, Saris W, Astrup A, Lauritzen L, Kristensen M, Lind MV. Møller G, et al. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 2021 Jun 7;31(6):1940-1941. doi: 10.1016/j.numecd.2021.02.021. Epub 2021 Mar 2. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 2021. PMID: 33895076 No abstract available.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources