ALTERNATIVE OBESITY ANTHROPOMETRIC INDICES TO PREDICT SUBCLINICAL ATHEROSCLEROSIS IN ADULT NIGERIANS

Obesity is one of the risk factors of cardiovascular diseases that can be assessed non-invasively using various measurements of anthropometry including WC, WHtR and WHR for abdominal obesity and BMI and BSA for general obesity. The aim of this study is to investigate whether there are other accurate, alternative obesity anthropometric indices for risk assessment of subclinical atherosclerosis and to determine their cut-off values. In this study, alternative anthropometric indices such as AH, PRFT, BSI and BSA were included. The Right Common Carotid Intima-Media Thickness (RCCIMT) was used as the surrogate marker to determine the association between the anthropometric indices and atherosclerotic risk. In this study, 221 apparently healthy consenting subjects participated and all the measurements required to compute the obesity anthropometric indices were taken. All the obesity anthropometric indices considered in this study were found to be positively and significantly correlating with the RCCIMT at p ˂ 0.01. Among the abdominal obesity anthropometric indices, WC, WHtR and WHR had correlation coefficients 0.382, 0.349 and 0.342 respectively, while AH and PRFT had 0.386 and 0.195 respectively. Among the general obesity category, BMI, BSA and BSI had correlation coefficients 0.296, 0.300 and 0.327 respectively. From these results, AH and BSI are found to be more accurate alternative abdominal and general obesity anthropometric indices respectively for risk assessment of subclinical atherosclerosis in adult Nigerians. From the ROC curves, the risk cut off values of AH and BSI are found to be 21.75 cm and 37.50 kg/m2 for both males and females. Keywords: Obesity, Anthropometric Indices, Intima-Media Thickness, Subclinical Atherosclerosis, Abdominal Height, Body Surface Area.