Anthropometric parameters association with the 10‑year Framingham cardiovascular disease risk score in an Iranian population: findings from the cross-sectional stage of the SHAHWAR study

Various anthropometric components have been proposed to predict cardio-metabolic risk. This study aimed to evaluate wrist circumference (WrC) as an alternative measure to differentiate individuals with a high 10-year cardiovascular disease risk score based on the Framingham scale. We studied 1,178 adults with a mean age of 40.11 ± 7.73 who worked at a university of medical sciences in northeastern Iran. Several anthropometric indices were calculated. The 10-year risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) was estimated using the Framingham risk score. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was performed to assess the ability of anthropometric indices to predict the 10-year risk of CVD events. WrC index with the highest area under the curve (AUC = 0.836) showed significantly higher predictive power than other indices in estimating 10-year cardiovascular disease risk, followed by waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) and waist circumference (WC). When the assessments were made by gender, WrC showed significantly higher predictive accuracy with 10-year cardiovascular disease risk in men compared to women, while body roundness index (BRI) and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) showed equally significant predictive accuracy in predicting high 10-year cardiovascular disease risk in women. In conclusion, WrC, followed by WHR, showed the best discriminatory power for identifying adults with an elevated estimated 10-year cardiovascular risk based on the Framingham Risk Score. These findings suggest that Wrc (as a marker for body fat distribution) is more strongly associated with estimated cardiovascular risk than other anthropometric indices in this relatively young population.