Normal-weight central obesity is associated with metabolic disorders in Chinese postmenopausal women

Background and Objectives: This cross-sectional study examined whether normal-weight central obesity, defined as a high waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), is associated with metabolic disorders in Chinese postmenopausal women. Methods and Study Design: We recruited 634 community-dwelling postmenopausal women with a normal body mass index (BMI) who participated in an annual health checkup. Normal-weight obesity (NWO) was defined as a normal BMI and WHtR in the highest tertile of the study population. The updated National Cholesterol Education Program/Adult Treatment Panel III criteria were used to assess metabolic abnormalities, and binary logistic regression models were employed to estimate the associations between NWO and metabolic disorders. Results: The prevalence of each metabolic disorder showed a graded increase (p<0.05) across the WHtR tertiles in the study population. NWO was significantly associated with some non-adipose components of metabolic syndrome (MetS) (p<0.05) after adjusting for age, smoking status, drinking status, inflammatory markers, total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-c), body fat percentage (BF%), and the remaining non-adipose MetS components. Participants in the highest WHtR tertile had a higher odds ratio [2.00 (1.193.33), p<0.01] for the presence of at least two non-adipose MetS components than those in the lowest tertile after adjusting for age, lifestyle factors, inflammatory markers, TC, LDL-c, and BF%. Conclusions: NWO is significantly associated with metabolic disorders, suggesting that a clinical assessment of abdominal obesity indices should be conducted in postmenopausal women, even in those with a normal BMI.