Objective: To explore the association between risk factors of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and insulin resistance in a cross-sectional study.
Methods: An investigation on risk factors of CVD was carried out using stratified-random sampling method among 1475 participants in Beijing. Homeostasis model assessment index (HOMA) was calculated to assess the insulin resistance in 1359 non-diabetic subjects aged 25 - 64 years. Insulin resistance was defined as HOMA index (fasting glucose in mmol/L x fasting insulin in mU/L/22.5) in the top quartile of the studied population.
Results: The degree of correlation between risk factors and natural logarithm of HOMA index in descending order were glucose, body mass index (BMI), triglyceride (TG), waist circumstance, high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C), uric acid, diastolic blood pressure, systolic blood pressure and total cholesterol (TC) (all P < 0.01). After adjusting factors as sex and age, glucose (r = 0.49), BMI (r = 0.44), TG (r = 0.44), waist circumstance (r = 0.41), uric acid (r = 0.33) and HDL-C (r = -0.32), the systolic blood pressure (r = 0.20), diastolic blood pressure (r = 0.18) and TC (r = 0.16) were independently correlated with HOMA index (P < 0.001). Sex (OR = 1.75), low HDL-C (OR = 1.80), hyperuricemia (OR = 2.11), high TG (OR = 2.14) and central obesity (OR = 2.68) appeared to be independently correlated to insulin resistance in multiple logistic regression analysis.
Conclusion: The risk factors of CVD as low HDL-C, high TG, central obesity and hyperuricemia were independently correlated to insulin resistance.