Abstract
Background:
To compare the strengths of the associations between total and region-specific body composition and insulin resistance (IR) considering sex and menopausal status and to compare body composition indicators for discriminating high IR.
Materials and Methods:
Among 5380 men, 3652 premenopausal women, and 3207 postmenopausal women in the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, high IR was defined as the sex-specific highest quintiles of homeostasis model assessment IR and metabolic syndrome. Percentages of bone mineral content (BMC%), muscle mass (MM%), and fat mass (FM%) were measured for the whole body, trunk, and upper/lower extremities by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry.
Results:
After adjusting for body mass, age, education, smoking status, alcohol use, and physical activity, one-standard deviation increases in whole-body FM%, MM%, and BMC% were associated with 50%–63%, 19%–26%, and 14%–22% higher odds of high IR in men and pre- and postmenopausal women, 31%–36%, 12%–17%, and 10%–15% lower odds, and 27%–36%, 31%–40%, and 19%–23% lower odds, respectively. Those associations for FM% in men and BMC% in premenopausal women tended to be stronger in the upper body than in lower extremities. In receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, FM% in men and BMC% in women had superior discriminatory abilities for high IR.
Conclusions:
IR may have a stronger association with FM% in men and BMC% in premenopausal women in upper body, while the association strength in postmenopausal women may be similar across body composition. These findings reveal differences in the strengths of region-, sex, and menopausal status-specific relationships between body composition and IR.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.