Usefulness of uric acid-to-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio for the evaluation of insulin resistance in healthy normoglycaemic and normoinsulinaemic men

Abstract Uric acid-to-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio (UHR) is a novel and promising marker for metabolic abnormalities. Recent studies have demonstrated that UHR is related to a number of diseases that are caused by insulin resistance. However, only a few studies have investigated the association between UHR and insulin resistance. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic ability of UHR to detect insulin resistance in healthy normoglycaemic and normoinsulinaemic men. A total of 209 healthy men (aged 23–57 years) with normoglycaemia and normoinsulinaemia were included in this study. Anthropometric and biochemical data were collected. Insulin resistance was assessed by original homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) and its computerized updated version (HOMA2-IR), the fasting glucose/insulin ratio (FGIR), the McAuley index, and the triglyceride-glucose (TyG) index. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was conducted to evaluate the ability of UHR to predict insulin resistance. UHR was significantly correlated with HOMA-IR (rs=0.23; p=0.001) and HOMA2-IR (rs=0.20; p=0.003). There were no correlations between UHR and other insulin resistance indices. The prevalence of insulin resistance among the participants was 21.5% and 9.6% according to HOMA-IR (>2.7) and HOMA2-IR (>1.8) cut-off values, respectively. ROC curve analysis revealed the diagnostic ability of UHR to determine insulin resistance assessed by HOMA2-IR (area under the ROC (AUROC) curve: 0.680; p=0.005). However, UHR did not predict insulin resistance assessed by HOMA-IR (AUROC curve: 0.584; p=0.087). UHR is not a reliable marker of insulin resistance in healthy men with normoglycaemia and normoinsulinaemia.