Association between weight-adjusted waist index and carotid atherosclerotic plaque in patients with type 2 diabetes in the Chinese population

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the weight-adjusted waist index (WWI) and the incidence of carotid atherosclerotic plaque in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) in the Chinese population. METHODS: A retrospective cross sectional analysis was conducted on data from 801 adult patients from May 2018 to January 2024. Spearman's correlation analysis was used to determine the correlation between WWI and carotid atherosclerotic plaque and analyzed the factors influencing carotid atherosclerotic plaque through binary logistic regression. Additionally, the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) was calculated to analyze the optimal cut-off point for WWI to predict carotid atherosclerotic plaque. RESULTS: Compared with the non-carotid atherosclerotic plaque group, the incidence of hypertension, systolic blood pressure, in the carotid atherosclerotic plaque group were higher than in the non-carotid plaque group(P < 0.05). Correlation analysis showed that WWI was positively correlated with carotid atherosclerotic plaque (r = 0.263)(P < 0.05). Binary logistic regression analysis showed that WWI was an independent risk factor for carotid atherosclerotic plaque in patients with T2DM. The ROC curve analysis for the WWI yielded an AUC of 0.65 (95% CI = 0.611-0.69, P < 0.05) for predicting the presence of carotid atherosclerotic plaque. CONCLUSION: WWI was independently associated with the occurrence of carotid atherosclerotic plaque in patients with T2DM. Given its simplicity and widespread use, WWI emerges as a novel and practical predictor for assessing the risk of developing carotid atherosclerotic plaque in Chinese patients with T2DM.