Comparison of insulin resistance-associated parameters in US adults: a cross-sectional study

Background Triglyceride-glucose (TyG) is correlated with cardiovascular events caused by insulin resistance (IR). The aim of this study was to analyze the relationship between TyG and its related indicators and IR among US adults from 2007 to 2018 in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) database so as to identify more accurate and reliable predictors of IR. Methods This is a cross-sectional study including 9884 participants (2255 with IR and 7629 without IR). TyG, TyG-body mass index (TyG-BMI), TyG waist circumference (TyG-WC), and TyG waist-to-height ratio (TyG-WtHR) were measured using standard formulas. Results TyG, TyG-BMI, TyG-WC, and TyG-WtHR were significantly correlated with IR in the general population, with TyG-WC being the most strongly correlated, with an odds ratio of 8.00 (95% confidence interval 5.05–12.67) for the fourth quartile of TyG-WC compared with the first quartile in the adjusted model. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis of the participants showed that the maximum area under the TyG-WC curve was 0.8491, which was significantly higher than that of the other three indicators. Moreover, this trend was stable both among people of both genders and among patients with coronary heart disease (CHD), hypertension, and diabetes. Conclusions The present study confirms that the TyG-WC index is more successful than TyG alone in identifying IR. In addition, our findings demonstrate that TyG-WC is a simple and effective marker for screening the general US adult population and those with CHD, hypertension, and diabetes and can be effectively used in clinical practice.