Relationship between the body adiposity index and cardiometabolic risk factors in obese postmenopausal women.

Objective: The purpose of the present secondary analysis study was to investigate the ability of the body adiposity index (BAI) to detect changes in % body fat levels before and after a weight loss intervention when compared to % body fat levels measured using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and to examine the relationship between the BAI with cardiometabolic risk factors.

Methods: The study population for this secondary analysis included 132 non-diabetic obese sedentary postmenopausal women (age: 57.2 ± 4.7 years, BMI: 35.0 ± 3.7 kg/m(2)) participating in a weight loss intervention that consisted of a calorie-restricted diet with or without resistance training. We measured: (1) visceral fat using CT-scan, (2) body composition using DXA, (3) hip circumference and height from which the BAI was calculated, and (4) cardiometabolic risk factors such as insulin sensitivity (using the hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp), blood pressure as well as fasting plasma lipids, hsC-reactive protein (CRP), leptin, and glucose.

Results: Percent body fat levels for both methods significantly decreased after the weight loss intervention. In addition, the percent change in % body fat levels after the weight loss intervention was significantly different between % body fat measured using the DXA and the BAI (-4.5 ± 6.6 vs. -5.8 ± 5.9%; p = 0.03, respectively). However, we observed a good overall agreement between the two methods, as shown by the Bland-Altman analysis, for percent change in % body fat. Furthermore, similar correlations were observed between both measures of % body fat with cardiometabolic risk factors. However, results from the multiple linear regression analysis showed that % body fat using the BAI appeared to predict cardiometabolic risk factors differently than % body fat using the DXA in our cohort.

Conclusions: Estimating % body fat using the BAI seems to accurately trace variations of % body fat after weight loss. However, this index showed differences in predicting cardiometabolic risk factors when compared to % body fat measured using DXA.