Lipid profile in relation to insulin resistance among non-diabetic Egyptian patients

The relationship between hyperlipidemia and insulin resistance (IR) is affected by several factors that affect using the lipid profile as a cheaper predictor of insulin resistance instead of the more expensive HOMA-IR.

Investigate the association of dyslipidemia with insulin resistance in non-diabetic individuals attending the internal medicine outpatient clinic of Beni-Suef University.

An analytical cross-sectional study of 371 non-diabetic participants attending the internal medicine outpatient clinic at Beni-Suef University over a 6-month. HOMA-IR, lipid profile, HBA1c, waist circumference, and BMI were measured for each participant.

There was a significant correlation between age, HbA1c, cholesterol, LDL, TG, and HOMA-IR level. There was also a significant association between older age, female sex, HbA1c, total cholesterol, TG, LDL, LDL/HDL ratio, total cholesterol/HDL, TG/HDL ratios, and the presence of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR ≥ 1). The increase in age by 1 year increases the probability of insulin resistance by 1.057, being female increases the probability of IR by 2.154, increasing cholesterol by one unit increases the probability of IR by 1.031, and increasing the TG/HDL ratio by one unit increases the probability of IR by 2.845. At a cutoff of 2, the TG/HDL can detect insulin resistance with 84.07% sensitivity, 13.79% specificity, 60.3% PPV, and 35.7% NPV.

Although there was a significant association between insulin resistance (more than or equal to 1) and age, sex, and lipid profile, the lipid profile in our study seems to have a minor role in the prediction of insulin resistance in non-diabetic Egyptians.