A Strong Association between Lipid Accumulation Product and Diabetes Mellitus in Japanese Women and Men

Aim: Lipid accumulation product (LAP) is a new continuous marker of lipid overaccumulation that predicts cardiovascular risk. The aim of this study was to determine the cutoff value for LAP and evaluate its usefulness. Methods: Using a database of results of health checkup examinations for 10,170 Japanese workers (35-40 years of age) conducted at their workplaces, the cutoff value for a high LAP was calculated by analyzing receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves for the relationships of LAP with hyperglycemia and diabetes. Results: The cutoff value for LAP was 21.1 for women and 37.2 for men. The values were similar when calculated by analyzing the ROC curves for the relationships with hyperglycemia and diabetes. Using these cutoff values, the prevalence of a high LAP was calculated to be 23.7% in women and 28.8% in men. The odds ratio for diabetes in the subjects with vs. those without a high LAP, calculated after adjusting for age, smoking, alcohol consumption and regular exercise, was 19.09 (95% CI: 6.57-55.50) in women and 7.40 (95% CI: 5.10-10.75) in men. High odds ratios for hypertension (10.66 [95% CI: 7.77-14.63] in women and 7.31 [95% CI: 6.20-8.62] in men) were also obtained in the subjects with vs. those without a high LAP. Conclusions: Cutoff values for a high LAP in women and men were determined, and high odds ratios for diabetes and hypertension were obtained using the cutoff values for LAP. Further studies are needed to elucidate whether the proposed cutoff values are applicable to people of other ages, races and ethnicities.