Aim: To assess the relationship between various obesity categories according to body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) and risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) among Chinese rural adults.
Methods: A total of 38,466 eligible participants were derived from The Henan Rural Cohort Study. Structured questionnaires and anthropometric and laboratory measurements were undertaken. Logistic regression was performed by gender.
Results: The age-standardized prevalence of T2DM in current study was 3.94% in men and 5.14% in women. Compared with participants with both normal BMI and WC, participants with normal BMI but high WC, high BMI but normal WC, or both high BMI and WC showed elevated risk of T2DM, in addition to being women with high BMI but normal WC. Moreover, when BMI and WC were included in the same multivariate adjusted model, both BMI and WC were significantly associated with increased T2DM risk in men, however, WC but not BMI remained positively associated with T2DM risk in women.
Conclusions: In summary, gender-specific differences between obesity measures and T2DM were found. WC was independently associated with increased risk of T2DM regardless of BMI status in women, whereas both BMI and WC showed positive association with T2DM risk in men.
Keywords: Body mass index; Gender specificity; Rural population; Type 2 diabetes mellitus; Waist circumference.
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