Purpose: The predictive capacity between children’s lipid accumulation product (CLAP) combining visceral adiposity index (VAI), CLAP, and VAI with metabolically unhealthy phenotype remained unclear. This study aimed to compare the ability of CLAP combining VAI, CLAP, VAI and traditional adiposity indicators (body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR)) to predict metabolically unhealthy phenotype among Chinese children and adolescents.
Patients and Methods: In the cross-sectional study, 1714 children and adolescents aged 12 to 18 were selected by random cluster sampling, underwent a questionnaire survey, physical examination, biochemical tests and body composition was measured by bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA). Participants were divided into four phenotypes according to BMI and metabolic syndrome components. The logarithmic CLAP (LnCLAP), VAI, BMI, WC, WHtR and WHR were standardized for sex and age using the z-score method (standardized variables: LnCLAP-z, VAI-z, BMI-z, WC-z, WHtR-z and WHR-z).
Results: LnCLAP-z ≥ 1, VAI-z ≥ 1, WC-z ≥ 1, and WHR-z ≥ 1 increased the risk of metabolically unhealthy normal-weight phenotype (the OR and 95% CI were 4.18 (1.75– 10.02), 24.05 (12.79– 45.21), 6.17 (1.14– 33.51), 2.69 (1.07– 6.72), respectively), LnCLAP-z ≥ 1, VAI-z ≥ 1 and WC-z ≥ 1 increased the risk of metabolically unhealthy overweight or obese phenotype (the OR and 95% CI were 2.67 (1.40– 5.09), 10.30 (3.03– 35.03), 2.19 (1.18– 4.09), respectively). The area under the ROC curve (AUC) for CLAP combining VAI in the prediction of the metabolically unhealthy phenotype were 0.837 (0.776– 0.899) and 0.876 (0.834– 0.918) for boys and girls with normal-weight, 0.853 (0.803– 0.903) and 0.794 (0.711– 0.878) for boys and girls with overweight and obese (all P < 0.001), which were higher than CLAP, VAI, BMI, WC, WHtR and WHR.
Conclusion: Among Chinese children and adolescents, CLAP combining VAI was a more effective indicator than CLAP, VAI and traditional adiposity indicators in predicting unhealthy metabolic phenotype.
Keywords: children’s lipid accumulation product, visceral adiposity index, unhealthy metabolic phenotype, traditional adiposity indicators, children and adolescents