Association between metabolic scores for visceral fat and chronic kidney disease: A cross-sectional study

Introduction: Central obesity is closely linked to the risk of chronic kidney disease (CKD). This study aimed to evaluate the association between the novel central obesity index- metabolic score for visceral fat (METS-VF) and the risk of CKD in a Chinese population, and to compare its ability to predict CKD with other central obesity indices including waist circumference (WC), waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), lipid accumulation product (LAP), visceral adiposity index (VAI), a body shape index (ABSI), body roundness index (BRI), and cardiometabolic index (CMI). Methods: . Multivariate logistic regression models were used to evaluate the association between the METS-VF and the prevalence of CKD. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses were performed to assess and compare the predictive abilities of the central obesity indices and determine the optimal cut-off points. Results: A graded increase in the prevalence of CKD was observed with increasing METS-VF tertiles. Moreover, the METS-VF was independently associated with the risk of CKD after adjustment for current smoking, current drinking, physical activity level, diabetes, hypertension, CVD history and BMI. Compared with participants with a METS-VF in the lowest tertile, the multivariate-adjusted ORs and 95% CIs for participants with a METS-VF in the highest tertile were 3.943 (2.435-6.385) in the overall population, 3.585 (1.585-8.109) for men and 4.627 (2.485-8.616) for women. Significant interactions were found between the METS-VF and the risk of CKD by age (P value for interaction = 0.023). In ROC analysis, the METS-VF had a higher AUC value than other indices for predicting CKD in men and had comparable or higher AUC than other indices for women. For predicting CKD, the optimal cut-off value of the METS-VF was 6.891 for men and 6.744 for women. The METS-VF yielded the greatest Youden index among all indices for both sexes. Conclusion: A higher METS-VF was independently associated with a greater risk of CKD. The METS-VF can be a useful clinical indicator for identifying CKD, as it had superior predictive power for CKD when compared with other central obesity indices.