The Waist-to-Height Ratio and Incidence of High LDL Cholesterol in Japanese: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

Authors

Takako Fujii, Shintaro Ishida, Makiko Abe, Miki Kawazoe, Toshiki Maeda, Chikara Yoshimura, Yori Inoue, Kazuhiro Tada, Koji Takahashi, Kenji Ito, Kosuke Masutani, Hisatomi Arima

Published in

Journal of atherosclerosis and thrombosis. Sep 01, 2026. Epub Sep 01, 2026.

Abstract

Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) is a major contributor to atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD). The waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) has been proposed as a practical marker of central obesity; however, evidence linking WHtR with incident high LDL-C levels in Japanese populations remains limited. This study investigated the association between WHtR and future LDL-C elevation in a community-based cohort in Japan.
This retrospective cohort study included 3,934 adults aged 30-74 years without dyslipidemia at baseline from the Iki Epidemiological Study of Atherosclerosis and Chronic Kidney Disease. The participants were followed between 2008 and 2019. WHtR was categorized into sex-specific quartiles. Incident high LDL-C was defined as LDL-C ≥ 3.62 mmol/L or initiation of lipid-lowering therapy. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate the hazard ratios (HRs), after adjusting for demographic, lifestyle, and clinical factors.
During a mean follow-up period of 5.02 years, 466 females and 424 males developed high LDL-C levels. Among females, the adjusted hazard ratio (HR) (95% confidence interval [CI]) for quartile 4 versus quartile 1 was 1.95 (1.41-2.71; p for trend ＜0.0001). Among males, the corresponding adjusted HR (95% CI) was 1.61 (1.18-2.21; p for trend = 0.001). A higher WHtR was associated with an increased risk of incident high LDL-C in both sexes (trend p＜0.01). A WHtR threshold of approximately 0.5 corresponded to a notable increase in risk.
A Higher WHtR was associated with an increased risk of incident high LDL-C. These findings suggest that WHtR may be a useful anthropometric indicator for identifying individuals at risk, although further studies are required.

PMID:
42686582
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 03 Sep 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.