The predictive value of estimated glucose disposal rate and its association with myocardial infarction, heart failure, atrial fibrillation and ischemic stroke

Aims: The relationship between the incidence of major cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and estimated glucose disposal rate (eGDR), a proxy measurement for insulin resistance (IR), is not well understood in the general population. The predictive value of eGDR and other proxies of IR for CVD incidents have not been examined in previous studies. This study aimed to investigate the association between eGDR and various CVD events, including myocardial infarction (MI), heart failure (HF), atrial fibrillation (AF) and ischemic stroke. Additionally, the predictive values of eGDR, triglyceride-glucose (TyG) index, TyG-waist circumference (WC), TyG-body mass index (BMI), TyG-waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), triglyceride (TG)-to-high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) ratio (TG/HDL-C) and the metabolic score for insulin resistance (METS-IR) for CVD events were compared.

Methods: The study population was extracted from the UK Biobank, and the CVD events were documented by linking to hospital records. Cox proportional hazards model and the restricted cubic spline model were used to assess the association between eGDR and the risk of CVDs with adjustment for potential confounders. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and the area under the curve (AUC) were used to compare the predictive values of eGDR, TyG, TyG-WC, TyG-BMI, TyG-WHtR, TG/HDL-C and METS-IR.

Results: A total of 360 953 participants were included in this study. During a median follow-up of 13.8 years, 12 698 MI, 10 360 HF, 23 638 AF and 6512 ischemic stroke events were documented. Compared with participants in the lowest quartile category of eGDR, those in the highest quartile category had the adjusted hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) of 0.59 (0.51-0.67) for MI, 0.66 (0.56-0.76) for HF, 0.88 (0.80-0.98) for AF and 0.73 (0.61-0.89) for ischemic stroke. eGDR outperformed TyG, TyG-WC, TyG-BMI, TyG-WHtR, TG/HDL-C and METS-IR in terms of predicting MI (AUC: 0.661), HF (AUC: 0.690), AF (AUC: 0.653) and ischemic stroke (AUC: 0.646).

Conclusions: eGDR was inversely associated with the incidence of MI, HF, AF and ischemic stroke in the general population. eGDR could serve as a more valuable predictive indicator than TyG, TyG-WC, TyG-BMI, TyG-WHtR, TG/HDL-C and METS-IR for CVD events in clinical practice.