Abdominal obesity and cardiovascular risk: performance of anthropometric indexes in women.

BACKGROUND Anthropometric indicators of abdominal obesity (AOB) estimate the amount of visceral fat tissue which, in turn, is associated with a higher risk of development of cardiovascular diseases. In the past decades, there has been an increase in the frequency of AOB in the brazilian female population, and this represents a major public health problem. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the performance of different cut-off points of the conicity index (C-Index), waist-hip ratio (WHR), waist circumference (WC), and waist-to-height ratio (WHeR) in discriminating high coronary risk (HCR) in women. METHODS Cross-sectional study conducted in Feira de Santana, State of Bahia, Brazil, with 270 female employees of a public University, with ages between 30 and 69 years. The analysis of sensitivity and specificity using the ROC curves allowed the identification and comparison of the best cut-off points to discriminate HCR, as calculated with base on the Framingham Risk Score. RESULTS The cut-off points found were: WC (86 cm), WHR (0.87), C-Index (1.25) and WHeR (0.55), and the areas under the ROC curve were 0.70 (95%CI = 0.63-0.77), 0.74 (95%CI = 0.67-0.81), 0.76 (95%CI = 0.70-0.83) and 0.74 (95%CI = 0.67-0.81), respectively. The anthropometric indicators of AOB analyzed showed satisfactory and similar performances in discriminating HCR. However, the C-Index was the indicator that presented the highest discriminatory power. CONCLUSION We expect that these findings will contribute to a better quantification of AOB in the brazilian female population, providing information so that health professionals can take preventive measures regarding this multifactorial clinical condition, thus preventing the development of cardiovascular diseases.