Waist -to-height ratio linked to NAFLD: BMC Gastroenterology

The waist circumference (WC) and body mass index (BMI) are currently the most widely used anthropometric indicators to assess obesity worldwide and are also the most critical risk factors for NAFLD . These indicators are simple to measure and provide excellent convenience to prevent and manage many diseases. However, in recent years, in-depth studies have found that the waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) can better assess the risk of central obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and other metabolic diseases . Furthermore, several recent cross-sectional studies have shown that WHtR is a stronger predictor of NAFLD risk and its severity and is more sensitive to diagnosis than WC and BMI . However, few studies have investigated the association between WHtR and NAFLD, which contain deeper relationships, such as non-linear relationships, and whether a special population exists among different subgroups. Additionally, the sample sizes of several existing studies on the association between WHtR and NAFLD are relatively small. Therefore, this study aimed to further explore and analyse the association between WHtR and NAFLD in adults using a large sample size.

For the current study,The cross-sectional study population was from a large-scale health examination programme called 'human dock' in Japan. In this study, 14,125 participants in this health examination programme were included. To understand the association between the WHtR and NAFLD more intuitively, researchers grouped the WHtR values into quintiles and used a multivariable logistic regression model to assess WHtR and its quintile with NAFLD risk. Moreover, the team used the generalised additive model to model the association between WHtR and NAFLD to explore their non-linear relationship.