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Neck circumference as an effective measure for identifying cardio-metabolic syndrome: a comparison with waist circumference

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Abstract

Neck circumference is a new anthropometric index for estimating obesity. We aimed to determine the relationship between neck circumference and body fat content and distribution as well as the efficacy of neck circumference for identifying visceral adiposity and metabolic disorders. A total of 1943 subjects (783 men, 1160 women) with a mean age of 58 ± 7 years were enrolled in this cross-sectional study. Metabolic syndrome was defined according to the standard in the 2013 China Guideline. Analyses were conducted to determine optimal neck circumference cutoff points for visceral adiposity quantified by magnetic resonance imaging, and to compare the performance of neck circumference with that of waist circumference in identifying abdominal obesity and metabolic disorders. Visceral fat content was independently correlated with neck circumference. Receiver operating characteristic curves showed that the area under the curve for the ability of neck circumference to determine visceral adiposity was 0.781 for men and 0.777 for women. Moreover, in men a neck circumference value of 38.5 cm had a sensitivity of 56.1 % and specificity of 83.5 %, and in women, a neck circumference value of 34.5 cm had a sensitivity of 58.1 % and specificity of 82.5 %. These values were the optimal cutoffs for identifying visceral obesity. There were no statistically significant differences between the proportions of metabolic syndrome and its components identified by an increased neck circumference and waist circumference. Neck circumference has the same power as waist circumference for identifying metabolic disorders in a Chinese population.

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Acknowledgments

We appreciate the efforts of all participants who contributed to sample measurements and data collections.

Funding

This work was funded by the 973 Program of China (2013CB530606), the Grant from Shanghai Health and Family Planning Commission (2013ZYJB1001), and the Translational Medicine Innovation Foundation of School of Medicine Shanghai Jiao Tong University (15ZH2010 and 15ZH4006).

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People’s Hospital, Shanghai Clinical Center for Diabetes, Shanghai Key Clinical Center for Metabolic Disease, Shanghai Diabetes Institute, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Diabetes Mellitus, Shanghai, 200233, China

      Yuqi Luo, Xiaojing Ma, Yun Shen, Yiting Xu, Qin Xiong, Xueli Zhang, Yuqian Bao & Weiping Jia

    2. Department of Radiology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People’s Hospital, Shanghai, 200233, China

      Yunfeng Xiao

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    1. Yuqi Luo
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    Correspondence to Yuqian Bao.

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    Ethical approval

    The study protocol was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People’s Hospital, and all procedures were performed in accordance with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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    The study methods and potential risks were fully explained to all participants, and each participant provided a written informed consent prior to enrollment.

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    Yuqi Luo and Xiaojing Ma contributed equally to this work.

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    Luo, Y., Ma, X., Shen, Y. et al. Neck circumference as an effective measure for identifying cardio-metabolic syndrome: a comparison with waist circumference. Endocrine 55, 822–830 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12020-016-1151-y

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