High waist-to-hip ratio levels are associated with insulin resistance markers in normal-weight women

Aim: To assess the association between high waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) levels and insulin resistance (IR) or hyperinsulinemia after oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) in a sample of normal-weight women. Methods: We conducted an analytical cross-sectional study in euthyroid non-diabetic women, who attended the outpatient service of a private clinic in Lima-Peru from 2012 to 2016. Participants were divided in two groups according to the presence or absence of high WHR levels, IR or hyperinsulinemia after OGTT. We considered WHR values > 0.85 as high levels. IR was defined as a Homeostasis Model Assessment (HOMA-IR) value > 2.39 and hyperinsulinemia after OGTT as a serum insulin value ≥ 80μU/mL after 120 min of 75-g glucose intake. We elaborated crude and adjusted Poisson generalized linear models to evaluate the association between high WHR levels and IR or hyperinsulinemia after OGTT and reported the prevalence ratio (PR) with their respective 95% confidence intervals (95%CI). Results: We analyzed the data of 248 euthyroid, non-diabetic and normal-weight women. The prevalence of high WHR levels was 68.9% (n = 171) while the prevalence of IR and hyperinsulinemia after OGTT was 25% (n = 62) and 15.3% (n = 38), respectively. WHR values were positively correlated with HOMA-IR (r = 0.307; p < 0.001) and serum insulin after OGTT (r = 0.260; p < 0.001). In the adjusted model, high WHR levels were associated with both IR (aPR = 2.63; 95%CI: 1.39–5.01) and hyperinsulinemia after OGTT (aPR = 2.35; 95%CI: 1.03–5.38). Conclusion: High WHR levels were associated with both IR markers used in our study, appearing to be a useful anthropometric indicator to assess IR in euthyroid normal-weight women without type 2 diabetes mellitus.