Weight-adjusted-waist index: an innovative indicator of breast cancer hazard

Abstract

Background Central obesity and breast cancer (BC) have been identified as relevant by empirical research. The weight-adjusted-waist index (WWI) is a novel methodology for quantifying central obesity. Inspection of the association between WWI and BC in American adult women was the primary goal of the current investigation. Methods Cross-sectional assessments were conducted on information gathered from 10,193 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) participants from 2011 to 2018. The waist circumference was divided by the square root of the body’s mass to compute WWI. Data were assessed via descriptive statistics to present data distributions according to BC grouping and WWI grouping, receiver operating characteristic curves (ROCs) to evaluate the obesity indicators’ applied value, logistic regression to reflect associations between WWI and BC prevalence, and restricted cubic splines (RCSs) and subgroup analysis forest plots to visualise and complement the relationships. Results This study enrolled 10,193 participants whose WWI ranged from 8.38 to 14.41, 259 of whom were diagnosed with BC, and the results revealed significant differences in baseline characteristics between the groups. With an area under the curve (AUC) value (95% confidence interval) (CI)of 0.611 (0.577–0.644), WWI was a promising indicator of BC with good application value rather than waist circumference (WC), body mass index (BMI), or waist-height ratio (WHtR). WWI and BC laid out a substantial relationship, yielding an odds ratio (OR) of 1.54 and a 95% CI of (1.34, 1.79), which remained at 1.19 (1.00, 1.42) after considerable adjustments were made, according to the logistic regression analysis. Compared with the lowest quartile of WWI, the highest quartile had a 62% greater in the probability of suffering from BC. With the RCS’s inverted U-shape highlighting the importance of considering the nonlinear nature of the relationship and subgroup analyses reflecting variations among populations, all the results demonstrated that WWI was a well-suggestive indicator of BC hazard. Conclusion The current investigation revealed a meaningful association between the prevalence of BC and WWI, which was superior to other obesity indicators, albeit one that was more complex than the positive relationship initially derived. There existed a turning point for BC prevalence at WWI of approximately 12 cm/√kg. Nevertheless, maintaining WWI in the lower range is critical for preventing and administering BC and minimizing disease risk.