A cross-sectional study of the association between a novel integrated insulin resistance indicator (IR6) and anxiety: Data from NHANES 2007 to 2012

The increasing association of insulin resistance (IR) with severe mental illnesses has a lot of importance to mental health and metabolism. Researching the association between IR indices and anxiety is quite fragmented. This study included 1670 individuals with anxiety and 4994 individuals without anxiety from 2007 to 2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Database. A novel IR indicator (IR6) was developed by combining 6 routine IR-related clinical indices (age, body mass index BMI, insulin, fasting blood glucose, triglycerides, and total cholesterol). Afterward, we used multivariate logistic regression models, correlation analysis, restricted cubic spline, and subgroup analysis to systematically evaluate the relationship between IR6 and anxiety. The findings indicated that IR6 levels were significantly higher in anxious participants than in non-anxious participants. This pattern was the same as that of triglyceride-glucose (TyG), TyG–BMI, homeostatic model assessment of IR (HOMA-IR), and HOMA-β. The study found a strong positive link between IR6 and TyG, TyG–BMI, HOMA-IR, and HOMA-β. According to the findings of multivariable logistic regression analyses, increased IR6 levels were an independent risk for anxiety, and this relationship remained statistically significant in the subgroup analyses according to the other variables. Restricted cubic spline analysis also found that IR6 had a positive nonlinear relationship with anxiety. In conclusion, our study confirms a strong relationship between IR and anxiety. Moreover, we reveal that IR6 is a novel IR marker with promise as a tool for anxiety risk assessment. Our knowledge of the relationship between metabolic function and mental health is further investigated with these findings.