Background: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) represents a large and growing public health problem. Insulin resistance (IR) plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of NAFLD. The aim of this study was to determine the association of triglyceride-glucose (TyG) index, TyG index with body mass index (TyG-BMI), lipid accumulation product (LAP), visceral adiposity index (VAI), triglycerides/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio (TG/HDL-c) and metabolic score for IR (METS-IR) with NAFLD in older adults and to compare the discriminatory abilities of these six IR surrogates for NAFLD.
Methods: This cross-sectional study included 72,225 subjects aged ≥ 60 years living in Xinzheng, Henan Province, from January 2021 to December 2021. The data were collected from the annual health examination dataset. Logistic regression models were used to examine the relationships between the six indicators and NAFLD risk. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) was used to compare the discriminatory ability of different IR surrogates for NAFLD under the influence of potential risk factors.
Results: After adjusting for multiple covariates, compared with the first quintile, the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of the highest quintiles of TyG-BMI were the most obvious (OR:43.02, 95% CI:38.89– 47.72), followed by the METS-IR (OR:34.49, 95% CI:31.41– 37.95). Restricted cubic spline analysis reported that there were non-linear positive association and dose-response relationship between 6 IR surrogates and NAFLD risk. Compared with other IR-related indicators (LAP, TyG, TG/HDL-c and VAI), TyG-BMI showed the highest AUC (AUC:0.8059;95% CI:0.8025– 0.8094). Additionally, METS-IR also had a high predictive performance for NAFLD, and the AUC was greater than 0.75 (AUC:0.7959;95% CI:0.7923– 0.7994).
Conclusion: TyG-BMI and METS-IR had pronounced discrimination ability to NAFLD, which are recommended as complementary markers for the assessment of NAFLD risk both in clinic and in future epidemiological studies.
Keywords: non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, insulin resistance surrogates, triglyceride-glucose index with body mass index, metabolic score for insulin resistance