Lipid accumulation product: a simple and accurate index for predicting metabolic syndrome in Taiwanese people aged 50 and over

BACKGROUND Lipid accumulation product (LAP) has been advocated as a simple clinical indicator of metabolic syndrome (MS). However, no studies have evaluated the accuracy of LAP in predicting MS in Taiwanese adults. The aim of our investigation was to use LAP to predict MS in Taiwanese adults. METHODS Taiwanese adults aged 50 years and over (n = 513) were recruited from a physical examination center at a regional hospital in southern Taiwan. MS was defined according to the MS criteria for Taiwanese people. LAP was calculated as (waist circumference [cm] - 65) × (triglyceride concentration [mM]) for men, and (waist circumference [cm] - 58) × (triglyceride concentration [mM]) for women. Simple logistic regression and receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) analyses were conducted. RESULTS The prevalence of MS was 19.5 and 21.5% for males and females, respectively. LAP showed the highest prediction accuracy among adiposity measures with an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.901. This was significantly higher than the adiposity measure of waist-to-height ratio (AUC = 0.813). CONCLUSIONS LAP was a simple and accurate predictor of MS in Taiwanese people aged 50 years and over. LAP had significantly higher predictability than other adiposity measures tested.