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.