Adiposity indices and their relationship with some risk factors of coronary heart disease in middle-aged Cambridge men and women

The relationship between five anthropometric measures (body mass index, waist to hip ratio, conicity index, waist circumference and waist to height ratio) and seven cardiovascular risk factors (total cholesterol, high and low density lipoprotein cholesterol, ratio of total cholesterol to high density lipoprotein and ratio of high density lipoprotein to low density lipoprotein cholesterol, systolic and diastolic blood pressure), were studied in 165 men and 202 women aged between 40 and 69 years living in an urban area of Cambridge, UK. Inter-correlations between the anthropometric measures varied between 0.34 and 0.92 and were generally higher in males than females. Tests of homogeneity of the five correlation coefficients for each risk factor revealed no significant heterogeneity for males, but significant differences for high density lipoprotein and ratio of total cholesterol to high density lipoprotein were found in females. Waist to hip ratio showed the highest correlations with the risk factors in women (3 out of 7), but no consistent pattern was found for males. Males had significantly lower cholesterol, low density lipoprotein cholesterol levels than females for any given waist to hip ratio and conicity index, waist circumference and waist to height ratio. In addition, men also had lower total cholesterol to high density lipoprotein cholesterol and high density lipoprotein cholesterol to low density lipoprotein cholesterol levels for waist to hip ratio or conicity index.