Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: There are significant physiologically and clinically differences in profiles between metabolic healthy and metabolic unhealthy obese individuals. Several markers are on study in order to better characterize the metabolic profile of metabolic unhealthy obese individuals. The aim of this work was to determine whether the triglycerides/glucose (TyG) index may be a valuable marker for identifying metabolically unhealthy obesity.

Methodology: Metabolic unhealthy obesity was defined as the presence of ≥3 of the following: blood pressure ≥130 and/or ≥85 mmHg or anti-hypertensive drug use; triglycerides ≥150 mg/dL or anti-dyslipidemic drug use; high-density-lipoprotein <40 mg/dL in males and <50mg/dL in females; fasting glucose ≥110 mg/dL or anti-diabetic drug use and waist circumference (WC) ≥102 cm in males and ≥88 cm in females. The TyG index was calculated as ln[fasting triglycerides (mg/dl) x fasting glucose (mg/dl)/2].

Results: We included 84 individuals, mean age 53.3±12.4 years, mean body mass index (BMI) 33.55±3.4 kg/m², mean WC 108.6±8.7 cm, 50% female. 88.1% (n=74) were classified as metabolic unhealthy obese individuals. These patients presented a superior TyG index compared to patients with metabolic healthy obesity (9.38±0.7 vs 8.54±0.7 P=0.001). Patients with metabolic unhealthy obesity also presented a significant larger WC and significantly low levels of HDL cholesterol and elevate levels of oxidized LDL-cholesterol. We did not find differences in respect to LDL cholesterol, uric acid and ultra-sensitive-PCR between the two groups of patients. ROC curves evidenced that a cut-off point of TyG index >8.94 identifies patients with a greater probability of having a metabolic unhealthy obesity (Sensitivity: 71.9%; Specificity 80.0%; AUC 0.822; P< 0.001).

Conclusion: We found that individuals with metabolic unhealthy obesity presented a higher TyG index compared to those with metabolic healthy obesity and that this index has a good specificity and sensitivity in identifying this type of obese individuals. Larger studies are necessary to validate this marker in our clinical practice, nevertheless, these data highlight the value of the TyG index in discriminating those obese subjects with metabolic dysregulation.