Association between the triglyceride-glucose (TyG) index and cardiometabolic risk factors in an adult Bamoun population in the West Region of Cameroon

Cardiometabolic diseases are a growing public health challenge in Sub-Saharan Africa, where assessment tools remain inaccessible. The triglyceride-glucose (TyG) index is a low-cost surrogate for evaluating cardiometabolic risk. This study evaluated the association between the TyG index and cardiometabolic risk factors among the Bamoun adults, a population at high risk of obesity. This cross-sectional analytical study included 408 Bamoun adults, 164 of whom had complete biochemical data allowing TyG calculation. Variables included body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), blood pressure, fasting blood glucose, triglycerides and total cholesterol. Abdominal obesity was defined using the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) criteria for Sub-Saharan Africa, and metabolic syndrome (MetS) using a modified IDF-based definition (HDL cholesterol unavailable). Data were analyzed in R, with sensitivity analyses excluding known diabetes and weighting for biochemical data availability. The median TyG index was 8.68 (IQR 8.34–8.96). Women were overrepresented (67.7%); mean age was 50.92 ± 15.53 years and median BMI 29.49 kg/m² (IQR 25.63–33.71). Among participants with biochemical data, prevalences of abdominal obesity, self-reported hypertension and MetS (156 classifiable participants) were 66.2% (95% CI 58.5–73.2), 39.6% (32.5–47.3) and 39.1% (31.8–46.9), respectively; these may not be generalized, as participants with biochemical data differed from those without. BMI showed the strongest correlation with TyG index (ρ = 0.275, p < 0.001), followed by WC (ρ = 0.210, p < 0.01). The difference between TyG–BMI and TyG–WHR correlations (ρ = 0.282 vs. 0.040; n = 153) was weak (Steiger p = 0.072). In multivariable regression, BMI was nominally associated with TyG (β = 0.021 per kg/m²; p = 0.025), but the overall model was not significant ( p = 0.140; adjusted R² = 0.026). TyG showed acceptable discrimination for MetS (AUC 0.777, 95% CI 0.694–0.859), higher than triglycerides alone (AUC 0.686; DeLong p = 0.001) but not different from fasting glucose, BMI or WC, and lower than a count of triglyceride and glucose components (AUC 0.886; p = 0.005). The bootstrap Youden cut-off was 8.77 (95% CI 8.75–8.87), with out-of-bag sensitivity 66.5% and specificity 82.2%. TyG index showed acceptable discrimination for MetS among Bamoun adults, partly reflecting shared components with the MetS definition, and was not better than BMI, WC or fasting glucose. Its screening potential in resource-limited settings requires validation in independent samples. Not applicable.