Aims: The ratio of aspartate aminotransferase (AST) to alanine aminotransferase (ALT) is of great interest as a possible novel marker of metabolic syndrome. However, longitudinal studies emphasizing the incremental predictive value of the AST-to-ALT ratio in diagnosing individuals at higher risk of developing metabolic syndrome are very scarce. Therefore, our study aimed to evaluate the AST-to-ALT ratio as an incremental predictor of new onset metabolic syndrome in a population-based cohort study.
Material and methods: The population-based cohort study included 2276 adults (903 men and 1373 women) aged 40-70 years, who participated from 2005-2008 (baseline) without metabolic syndrome and were followed up from 2008-2011. Metabolic syndrome was defined according to the harmonized definition of metabolic syndrome. Serum concentrations of AST and ALT were determined by enzymatic methods.
Results: During an average follow-up period of 2.6-years, 395 individuals (17.4%) developed metabolic syndrome. In a multivariable adjusted model, the odds ratio (95% confidence interval) for new onset of metabolic syndrome, comparing the fourth quartile to the first quartile of the AST-to-ALT ratio, was 0.598 (0.422-0.853). The AST-to-ALT ratio also improved the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) for predicting new cases of metabolic syndrome (0.715 vs. 0.732, P = 0.004). The net reclassification improvement of prediction models including the AST-to-ALT ratio was 0.23 (95% CI: 0.124-0.337, P<0.001), and the integrated discrimination improvement was 0.0094 (95% CI: 0.0046-0.0143, P<0.001).
Conclusions: The AST-to-ALT ratio independently predicted the future development of metabolic syndrome and had incremental predictive value for incident metabolic syndrome.