Photo Credit: Ekaterina Chizhevskaya

The following is a summary of “Association between triglyceride-glucose index and its composite obesity indexes and cardio-renal disease: analysis of the NHANES 2013-2018 cycle,” published in the January 2025 issue of Endocrinology by Wu et al. 

Researchers conducted a retrospective study to examine the relationship between triglyceride-glucose (TYG) and its composite obesity indexes with cardio-renal disease in the American population.  

They examined 11,491 adults (≥20 years) from the 2003-2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to analyze the associations between TYG, TyG-Waist-to-Height Ratio (TyG-WHtR), TyG-Body Mass Index (TyG-BMI), TyG-Waist Circumference (TyG-WC), and chronic kidney disease (CKD), cardiovascular disease (CVD), and cardiorenal syndrome (CRS), and employed weighted multivariate logistic regression, restricted cubic spline (RCS), receiver operating characteristic curves, and subgroup analyses.   

The results showed positive associations between TYG and its composite obesity indexes with CKD, CVD, and CRS after adjusting for confounders, TYG was most strongly linked to CKD (OR 1.42, 95% CI 1.11–1.82; P = 0.007), while TyG-WHtR was most correlated with CVD (OR 1.63, 95% CI 1.19–2.22; P = 0.003) and CRS (OR 1.44, 95% CI 1.00–2.08; P = 0.055). Nonlinear relationships between TYG and composite obesity indexes with CKD were found (P for overall < 0.001, P for nonlinear < 0.05), whereas associations with CVD and CRS were linear (P for overall < 0.001, P for nonlinear > 0.05). Based on ROC curves, TyG-WHtR and TyG-WC were more reliable than TYG for diagnosing cardiac and renal diseases. Subgroup analyses showed stronger associations between TYG and composite obesity indexes in males individuals ≤ 50 years with CKD, and those with diabetes mellitus (P for interaction 0.05).  

Investigators concluded the TyG-WHtR and TyG-WC were related to an increased risk of cardiac and renal disease, offering enhanced diagnostic accuracy and an effective tool for identifying early cardiorenal disease and improving risk stratification. 

Source: frontiersin.org/journals/endocrinology/articles/10.3389/fendo.2025.1505808/full