Korean J Fam Pract 2019; 9(1): 3-9  https://doi.org/10.21215/kjfp.2019.9.1.3
Association between Waist Circumference and High-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol in Korean Adults: Based on the Data of Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2015
Dong Ho Chun*
Department of Family Medicine, Green Hospital, Seoul, Korea
Dong Ho Chun, Tel: +82-2-490-2000, Fax: +82-2-490-2111, E-mail: jacalkun@naver.com, ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7614-6773
Received: February 23, 2018; Revised: September 18, 2018; Accepted: October 17, 2018; Published online: February 20, 2019.
© The Korean Academy of Family Medicine. All rights reserved.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Background: The aim of this study was searching for the orientation and degree of association, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves between waist circumference (WC) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) of Korean adults for the new recommended WC values.
Methods: This study analyzed 5,069 Korean adults of the 2015 Korea National Health & Nutrition Examination Survey, using Pearson’s correlation analysis, partial correlation analysis between WC and HDL-C with other significant variables to HDL-C controlled, and ROC curves.
Results: WC had the highest Pearson’s correlation coefficient to HDL-C at -0.289 (P<0.01) in men, and -0.318 (P<0.01) in women. With other significant variables controlled, the partial correlation coefficient between WC and HDL-C became -0.250 (P<0.001) in men and -0.191 (P<0.001) in women. WC had the biggest area under the curve (AUC). For HDL-C≤40 mg/dL, the AUC values of WC were 0.633 (99% confidence interval [CI]: 0.600–0.666; P<0.001) in men and 0.684 (99% CI: 0.648–0.719; P<0.001) in women. For HDL-C≤60 mg/dL, the AUC values of WC were 0.654 (99% CI: 0.612–0.696; P<0.001) in men and 0.661 (99% CI: 0.632–0.690; P<0.001) in women.
Conclusion: There was an inverse correlation between WC and HDL-C in Korean adults. While WC showed the strongest relation with HDL-C in both sexes, the scale of their interrelationship in men was larger if other significant variables were controlled. The new recommended WC values obtained by ROC curves of this study were ≤87.5 cm (better if ≤84.5 cm) in men, and ≤81.5 cm (better if ≤78.5 cm) in women.
Keywords: Waist Circumference; High-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol; Reverse Cholesterol Transport; Korean Adults
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