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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Endocrinol.
Sec. Cardiovascular Endocrinology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fendo.2025.1467886
This article is part of the Research Topic Cardiovascular Diseases Related to Diabetes and Obesity - Volume V View all 20 articles
Association of Body Fat Percentage with Diabetes in Hypertensive Adults of Different Genders: A Cross-Sectional Study
Provisionally accepted
Jingan Rao 
Congcong Ding 
Yumeng Shi 
Zhou Wei 
Chao Yu 
Tao Wang 
Lingjuan Zhu 
Xiao Huang 
Huihui Bao *
Xiaoshu Cheng *- Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, the Second Affiliated Hospital, Jiangxi Medical College, Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China
Background: While numerous epidemiological studies on body fat and diabetes already exist, there remains a scarcity of evidence regarding gender differences within hypertensive populations.The aim of this study was to examine gender-specific differences in the association of body fat percentage (BFP) with diabetes.This cross-sectional study encompassed 14,228 hypertensive patients from the Chinese Hypertension Registry. An easily obtainable anthropometric parameter, Clínica University de Navarra-Body Adiposity Estimator (CUN-BAE) equation was used to calculate body fat percentage (BFP). Diabetes was defined as the self-report of a previous diagnosis of diabetes, fasting blood glucose ≥ 7.0mmol/l, and the use of antidiabetic agents. The average BFP was 24.5% in men and 37.0% in women. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed a dose-dependent relationship between BFP and the risk of diabetes in men (odds ratio [OR] 1.09, 95% CI 1.07, 1.11) and women (OR 1.06, 95% CI 1.04, 1.07) while considering BFP as a continuous variable. After taking BFP as the quartile across different genders, compared with Q1 group, the risk of diabetes in Q4 group increased 176% (OR 2.76, 95% CI 2.15, 3.55) in men and 66% (OR 1.66, 95% CI 1.36, 2.03) in women. Furthermore, the positive association was found to be more significant in men, whether BFP was considered a continuous variable (P for interaction = 0.016) or a categorical variable in quartiles (P for interaction = 0.008). In addition, the positive association between BFP and diabetes remained consistent across various subgroups.BFP is positively associated with the increased risk of diabetes in hypertensive population, especially in men.
Keywords: Body fat percentage, diabetes, Gender difference, Hypertension, cohort study
Received: 21 Jul 2024; Accepted: 10 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Rao, Ding, Shi, Wei, Yu, Wang, Zhu, Huang, Bao and Cheng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Huihui Bao, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, the Second Affiliated Hospital, Jiangxi Medical College, Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China
Xiaoshu Cheng, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, the Second Affiliated Hospital, Jiangxi Medical College, Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China
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