Comparison between general obesity and abdominal adiposity to estimate cardiovascular disease prevalence in individuals with chronic kidney disease: results from NHANES 2005-2016.

Abdominal obesity, regardless of overall obesity, is associated with metabolic abnormalities and with direct impact on cardiovascular risk. The aim of this study was to compare body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) to estimate cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevalence in individuals with chronic kidney disease (CKD). The data analyzed is from 2005-2016 cycles of the NHANES. A total of 2,825 participants with CKD were included in this study, and most of them had a high BMI, 66.1%, to be exact (BMI ≥ 25.0 kg/m² if age <65 or >27.0 if age ≥ 65). The prevalence rates of high WC (≥102 cm for men or ≥88 cm for women) and high WHtR (WHtR>0.5) in the study population were 70.0% and 91.0%, respectively. The results of this study suggest that BMI is a good indicator of the risk of CVDs in individuals with CKD. In addition, the results show that WC and WHtR are associated with CVDs in non-overweight individuals of both sexes. These results indicate that the assessment of abdominal fat is essential even in non-overweight patients because the risk of CVDs cannot be identified in this subpopulation using only BMI.