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Abstract
Objectives Neck circumference has emerged as a predictor of obesity and metabolic syndrome, but its clinical usefulness for different groups of population is not clearly defined. The aim is to evaluate the predictive capacity of neck circumference in order to detect cardiovascular risks (CVRs) on the Chilean population and to compare it with waist circumference performance.
Design Cross-sectional study.
Setting General Chilean population.
Participants Data of 4607 adults aged 18 and over from the Chilean National Health Survey 2009–2010 were analysed.
Primary and secondary outcome measures Anthropometrics measures included neck and waist circumference, height and weight. CVR was identified according to the Framingham tables adapted for the Chilean population. Receiver operating characteristics curves and logistic regression models were made to evaluate the performance of neck circumference to predict a moderate/high CVR, comparing it to waist circumference.
Results Almost 10% of the sample had a moderate or high CVR. The probability of having a moderate/high cardiovascular risk increase with cervical obesity (OR 1.95, 95% CI 1.04 to 3.68) and central obesity (OR 4.5, 95% CI 2.47 to 8.22). The area under the curves were high for cervical obesity (AUC 81.4%, 95% CI 78.8% to 84.0%) and central obesity (AUC 82.2%, 95% CI 79.7% to 84.7%) and not statistically different (p=0.152).
Conclusions Neck obesity has a high capacity to predict moderate/high CVR in the Chilean population. Its good performance appears as an opportunity to use it in clinical practice when waist circumference measurement is difficult to measure and eventually replace the waist circumference measurement as the technique is easier.
- neck circumference
- cardiovascular risk
- overweight
- waist circumference
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Footnotes
Contributors PC, XG and GW made substantial contributions to the research design. PC and AC led the statistical analyses. PC and CS contributed to manuscript drafting and editing. All authors critically reviewed and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Ethics approval The 2009–2010 NHS protocol was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (1 September 2009).
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data availability statement Data are available in a public, open access repository.