Association of triglyceride glucose index and its combination of obesity indices with prehypertension in lean individuals: A cross-sectional study of Chinese adults

For normal-weight population, the management of prehypertension may be more beneficial by identifying insulin resistance (IR) status than relying solely on traditional indicators of obesity. We investigated the association of triglyceride glucose (TyG) index, a simple surrogate marker of IR, and its combination of obesity indices with prehypertension in lean individuals. A total of 105 070 lean adults without hypertension were included in this analysis. Body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), waist-to-height ratio (WtHR), and TyG were calculated according to the corresponding formula; TyG-BMI, TyG-WC, and TyG-WHtR were calculated by multiplying the corresponding two parameters. Gardner-Altman plots, partial correlation, and logistic regression analyses were applied to explore the associations in continuous variables and quartiles. The prehypertensive ones had higher mean values of TyG, TyG-BMI, TyG-WC, and TyG-WHtR than normotensive individuals. All the four indicators showed positive correlations with systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure. After full adjustment, only TyG-BMI and TyG-WC were significantly associated with prehypertension in both genders. Furthermore, TyG-BMI had the highest OR for prehypertension. Our study showed that TyG-BMI might be an accessible and complementary monitor in the hierarchical management of non-obese prehypertensive patients.

Keywords: insulin resistance; non-obese population; prehypertension; triglyceride glucose (TyG) index.