APPLICATILITY OF THE VISCERAL ADIPOSITY INDEX (VAI) IN THE PREDICTION OF THE COMPONENTS OF THE METABOLIC SYNDROME IN ELDERLY

The nutritional assessment may detect a state of malnutrition, overweight and cardiometabolic risk in the elderly. Easy to apply instruments enable the identification of risk factors for cardiovascular diseases (CVD). to analyze the applicability of Visceral Adiposity Index (VAI) in the prediction of MS components in the elderly. cross-sectional study with 221 elderly at a mean age of 70.65 ± 7.34 years; 53.4% female and 46.4% male. Weight, height, waist circumference (WC), fasting glucose, triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC), HDL cholesterol (HDL-C), LDL cholesterol (LDL-C), and blood pressure (BP), data was obtained, as well as information about lifestyle. There were calculated the Body Mass Index (BMI), the Waist-Hip Ratio (WHR), and the VAI. The adiposity measures were compared with the components of MS, and for the VAI there was determined the capability of predicting the occurrence of MS components. by analyzing the association among the biochemical and pressoric variables and MS components with the anthropometric indicators of obesity, there was a direct and significant correlation of the BMI, the weight and the VAI with blood glucose, HDL and TG (p.