Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Correlation between triglyceride-glucose index and related parameters and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in northwest China

  • Original Article
  • Published:
International Journal of Diabetes in Developing Countries Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Objective

The triglyceride glucose (TyG) index and obesity are significantly closely related to the incidence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The study aimed to investigate the relationship among the TyG index and its related parameters [TyG-waist circumference (WC) and TyG-body mass index (BMI)] with NAFLD.

Methods

This was a cross-sectional study involving 8401 subjects who underwent a health examination in Karamay, Xinjiang Province, China. TyG, TyG-WC, TyG-BMI were calculated with the established formula. NAFLD was diagnosed and classified by ultrasonography.

Results

The prevalence of NAFLD was markedly increased with increasing levels of TyG, TyG-WC and TyG-BMI. Logistic regression analysis suggested that WC, BMI, TyG, TyG-WC and TyG-BMI were independent risk factors for NAFLD. In receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, TyG-BMI showed the largest area under the ROC curve (AUC) for the detection of NAFLD (0.856, 95% confidence interval: 0.848 ~ 0.865), and the results of sex analysis were consistent. TyG-BMI values of 176.69 (sensitivity: 86.9%, specificity: 68.1%), 193.02 (sensitivity: 73.8%, specificity: 73.6%) and 167.73 (sensitivity: 86.3%, specificity: 74.4%) were the optimal cutoff points to predict NAFLD in all participants, males and females, respectively.

Conclusions

This study demonstrated that TyG and its related parameters are significantly correlated with NAFLD. TyG-BMI is an effective predictor or clinical marker for identifying NAFLD.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

The data for the current study used for statistical analysis are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable justification.

References

  1. Zhou J, Zhou F, Wang W, Zhang XJ, Ji YX, Zhang P, et al. Epidemiological features of NAFLD from 1999 to 2018 in China. Hepatology. 2020;71:1851–64.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Lazo M, Bilal U, Perez-Escamilla R. Epidemiology of NAFLD and type 2 diabetes: health disparities among persons of Hispanic origin. Curr Diab Rep. 2015;15:116.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Liu H, Lu HY. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and cardiovascular disease. World J Gastroenterol. 2014;20:8407–15.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  4. Rinella ME. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: a systematic review. JAMA. 2015;313:2263–73.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Du T, Yuan G, Zhang M, Zhou X, Sun X, Yu X. Clinical usefulness of lipid ratios, visceral adiposity indicators, and the triglycerides and glucose index as risk markers of insulin resistance. Cardiovasc Diabetol. 2014;13:146.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  6. Mohd Nor NS, Lee S, Bacha F, Tfayli H, Arslanian S. Triglyceride glucose index as a surrogate measure of insulin sensitivity in obese adolescents with normoglycemia, prediabetes, and type 2 diabetes mellitus: comparison with the hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp. Pediatr Diabetes. 2016;17:458–65.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Lim J, Kim J, Koo SH, Kwon GC. Comparison of triglyceride glucose index, and related parameters to predict insulin resistance in Korean adults: an analysis of the 2007–2010 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. PLoS ONE. 2019;14: e0212963.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  8. Schuster S, Cabrera D, Arrese M, Feldstein AE. Triggering and resolution of inflammation in NASH. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2018;15:349–64.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Friedman SL, Neuschwander-Tetri BA, Rinella M, Sanyal AJ. Mechanisms of NAFLD development and therapeutic strategies. Nat Med. 2018;24:908–22.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  10. Kitae A, Hashimoto Y, Hamaguchi M, Obora A, Kojima T, Fukui M. The triglyceride and glucose index is a predictor of incident nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: a population-based cohort study. Can J Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2019;2019:5121574.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  11. Zheng R, Du Z, Wang M, Mao Y, Mao W. A longitudinal epidemiological study on the triglyceride and glucose index and the incident nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Lipids Health Dis. 2018;17:262.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  12. Khamseh ME, Malek M, Abbasi R, Taheri H, Lahouti M, Alaei-Shahmiri F. Triglyceride glucose index and related parameters (triglyceride glucose-body mass index and triglyceride glucose-waist circumference) identify nonalcoholic fatty liver and liver fibrosis in individuals with overweight/obesity. Metab Syndr Relat Disord. 2021;19:167–73.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Zhang S, Du T, Zhang J, Lu H, Lin X, Xie J, et al. The triglyceride and glucose index (TyG) is an effective biomarker to identify nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Lipids Health Dis. 2017;16:15.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  14. Wong VW, Chan WK, Chitturi S, Chawla Y, Dan YY, Duseja A, et al. Asia-Pacific Working Party on Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease guidelines 2017-Part 1: definition, risk factors and assessment. J Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2018;33:70–85.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Guerrero-Romero F, Simental-Mendía LE, González-Ortiz M, Martínez-Abundis E, Ramos-Zavala MG, Hernández-González SO, et al. The product of triglycerides and glucose, a simple measure of insulin sensitivity. Comparison with the euglycemic-hyperinsulinemic clamp. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2010;95:3347–51.

  16. Zheng S, Shi S, Ren X, Han T, Li Y, Chen Y, et al. Triglyceride glucose-waist circumference, a novel and effective predictor of diabetes in first-degree relatives of type 2 diabetes patients: cross-sectional and prospective cohort study. J Transl Med. 2016;14:260.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  17. Er LK, Wu S, Chou HH, Hsu LA, Teng MS, Sun YC, et al. Triglyceride glucose-body mass index is a simple and clinically useful surrogate marker for insulin resistance in nondiabetic individuals. PLoS ONE. 2016;11: e0149731.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  18. Hamaguchi M, Kojima T, Itoh Y, Harano Y, Fujii K, Nakajima T, et al. The severity of ultrasonographic findings in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease reflects the metabolic syndrome and visceral fat accumulation. Am J Gastroenterol. 2007;102:2708–15.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Kelishadi R, Cook SR, Adibi A, Faghihimani Z, Ghatrehsamani S, Beihaghi A, et al. Association of the components of the metabolic syndrome with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease among normal-weight, overweight and obese children and adolescents. Diabetol Metab Syndr. 2009;1:29.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  20. Chan DF, Li AM, Chu WC, Chan MH, Wong EM, Liu EK, et al. Hepatic steatosis in obese Chinese children. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 2004;28:1257–63.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Ramirez-Velez R, Izquierdo M, Correa-Bautista JE, Correa-Rodriguez M, Schmidt-RioValle J, Gonzalez-Jimenez E, et al. Liver fat content and body fat distribution in youths with excess adiposity. J Clin Med. 2018;7:528.

  22. Li L, Liu DW, Yan HY, Wang ZY, Zhao SH, Wang B. Obesity is an independent risk factor for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: evidence from a meta-analysis of 21 cohort studies. Obes Rev. 2016;17:510–9.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Pang Q, Zhang JY, Song SD, Qu K, Xu XS, Liu SS, et al. Central obesity and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease risk after adjusting for body mass index. World J Gastroenterol. 2015;21:1650–62.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  24. Tuo X, Yuan J, Wang XH, Xin Z. Identifying the insulin resistance index in nondiabetic Chinese subjects. Medicine (Baltimore). 2020;99: e19023.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  25. Zhang S, Du T, Li M, Jia J, Lu H, Lin X, et al. Triglyceride glucose-body mass index is effective in identifying nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in nonobese subjects. Medicine (Baltimore). 2017;96: e7041.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  26. Lim J. Validation of fatty liver index in a healthy Korean population and its comparison with triglyceride glucose index and its related parameters. Clin Chim Acta. 2019;493:S355–78.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Lonardo A, Nascimbeni F, Ballestri S, Fairweather D, Win S, Than TA, et al. Sex differences in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: state of the art and identification of research gaps. Hepatology. 2019;70:1457–69.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  28. Estes C, Chan HLY, Chien RN, Chuang WL, Fung J, Goh GB, et al. Modelling NAFLD disease burden in four Asian regions-2019-2030. Aliment Pharmacol Ther. 2020;51:801–11.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  29. Zhou X, Li Y, Zhang X, Guan YY, Puentes Y, Zhang F, et al. Independent markers of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in a gentrifying population-based Chinese cohort. Diabetes Metab Res Rev. 2019;35: e3156.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

We thank all the doctors and nurses at the Department of Health Management Center and Department of Ultrasound Imaging (People’s Hospital of Karamay) who participated in this study.

Funding

This research was financed by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFC1311801).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Management, Health Management Center, General Practice Center, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, Sichuan, China

    Danting Li

  2. Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, People’s Hospital of Karamay, Karamay, 834000, Xinjiang, China

    Shengli Wu & Nong Li

  3. Department of Health Management Center, People’s Hospital of Karamay, Karamay, 834000, Xinjiang, China

    Meiyu Zhang & Chengyao Xie

  4. Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, Sichuan, China

    Huiwen Tan

Authors
  1. Danting Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Shengli Wu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Meiyu Zhang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Chengyao Xie
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Huiwen Tan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Nong Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

DL, HT and NL designed the study. DL drafted this manuscript. DL, SW, MZ, CX, HT and NL participated in the data collection and analysis. HT, NL and SW reviewed and revised this manuscript. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Huiwen Tan or Nong Li.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The clinical study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Karamay People’s Hospital, Xinjiang Second Medical College. The research protocol was implemented according to the principles expressed in the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki and under the International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Subjects (GIOMS, Geneva, 1993). Informed consent was obtained from all subjects.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Li, D., Wu, S., Zhang, M. et al. Correlation between triglyceride-glucose index and related parameters and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in northwest China. Int J Diabetes Dev Ctries (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13410-023-01255-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13410-023-01255-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation