Association between lipid accumulation product index (LAP index) and coronary artery disease risk

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a highly prevalent condition that predominantly affects obese individuals and those with metabolic abnormalities. The lipid accumulation product (LAP), combining waist circumference (WC) and triglyceride (TG) measurements, provides a clinically relevant metric for evaluating adipose tissue deposition. However, existing research findings regarding its association with CAD remain inconsistent. Therefore, this study further investigates the relationship between LAP and CAD to elucidate whether the LAP index can serve as a reliable screening tool for identifying individuals at high risk for CAD. Utilizing the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2017-2020 database, we performed logistic regression analysis to investigate the association between LAP and CAD. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was applied to assess the predictive performance of LAP and other metabolic parameters in relation to CAD. Additionally, subgroup analyses and interaction tests were performed to detect possible effect modifiers and verify the robustness of findings across different population strata. Our study recruited 7860 participants, among whom 499 individuals were diagnosed with CAD. A statistically significant association between LAP and CAD was established through regression analysis (OR: 4.12, 95% CI: 2.06-6.23, P < .001). ROC analysis found that LAP demonstrates moderate-to-good discriminatory power for CAD (AUC: 0.789, 95% CI: 0.773-0.805, P < .001) when compared to other metabolic markers. Notably, a statistically significant elevation in LAP levels is observed among CAD patients when compared to their counterparts without CAD. These results support its integration into clinical protocols as a gatekeeper screening mechanism for primary CAD prevention.