Objective: To study the relationship between insulin resistance and cardiovascular risk factor clustering.
Methods: The height, body weight, waist circumference, and hip circumference were measured, and fasting venous blood was drawn among 1 196 rural residents, 533 males (44.57%) and 663 females (55.43%), aged 35 approximately 59 with the average age of 46.69, in Pizhou City, Jiangsu Province, selected by random sampling. Fasting serum true insulin (TI) was determined by ELISA. Blood lipids were measured by completely automatic biochemical analyzer. Homeostasis model assessment (HOMA) index was calculated and used as the indicator to evaluate insulin resistance. The statistic methods, such as Spearman correlation, partial correlation and multivariate Logistic regression were used to study the relationship between insulin resistance and hypertension, overweight, visceral obesity, dyslipidemia and cardiovascular risk factors clustering.
Results: The median (Q(R)) of TI and HOMA index were 4.89 (3.02 approximately 7.09) mIU/L and 0.98 (0.57 approximately 1.44) respectively, and TI and HOMA index of the female subjects were significantly higher than those of the male subjects (P < 0.01). The correlation coefficient between HOMA index and cardiovascular risk factors number was 0.290 (P < 0.01) by Spearman correlation analysis and 0.177 6 (P < 0.01) by partial correlation analysis after adjustment by age, sex, body mass index and waist circumference respectively. The results of non-conditional multivariate stepwise Logistic regression indicated that insulin resistance associated with cardiovascular risk factors aggregation and was independent of age, sex, body mass index and waist circumference, and the odds ratio (95% CI) was 1.250 (1.089 approximately 1.434).
Conclusion: Insulin resistance may be a common pathogenetic mechanism of cardiovascular risk factor dustering.