Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Response to Letter to the Editor
  • Published:

Response to the Letter entitled ‘BMI, waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio: diabetes mellitus types 2’

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 64, page 1378 (2010)Cite this article

Subjects

In his letter, Dr Wiwanitkit (this issue) argued that measurement of waist circumference (WC) is subject to less error because only a single measurement is required. This is, therefore, in favour of the use of WC measurement.

As a surrogate measurement of body fat, either body mass index (BMI) or WC has been widely evaluated with regard to their association with body fat and health outcomes such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. We have made a literature review focusing only on studies that had compared BMI with WC with regard to the strength of their association with diabetes. The findings were inconsistent: some studies revealed a stronger association of diabetes with BMI than with WC, but others found that WC was better than BMI (Qiao and Nyamdorj, 2010).

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  • Nadas J, Putz Z, Kolev G, Nagy S, Jermendy G (2008). Intraobserver and interobserver variability of measuring waist circumference. Med Sci Monit 14, CR15–CR18.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Panoulas VF, Ahmad N, Fazal AA, Kassamali RH, Nightingale P, Kitas GD et al. (2008). The inter-operator variability in measuring waist circumference and its potential impact on the diagnosis of the metabolic syndrome. Postgrad Med J 84, 344–347.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Qiao Q, Nyamdorj R (2010). Is the association of type II diabetes with waist circumference or waist-to-hip ratio stronger than that with body mass index? Eur J Clin Nutr 64, 30–34.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ross R, Berentzen T, Bradshaw AJ, Janssen I, Kahn HS, Katzmarzyk PT et al. (2008). Does the relationship between waist circumference, morbidity and mortality depend on measurement protocol for waist circumference? Obes Rev 9, 312–325.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ulijaszek SJ, Kerr DA (1999). Anthropometric measurement error and the assessment of nutritional status. Br J Nutr 82, 165–177.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Wiwanitkit V (2010). BMI, waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio: diabetes mellitus types 2. Eur J Clin Nutr (this issue).

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Public Health, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Q Qiao

Authors
  1. Q Qiao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Q Qiao.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Qiao, Q. Response to the Letter entitled ‘BMI, waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio: diabetes mellitus types 2’. Eur J Clin Nutr 64, 1378 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2010.129

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2010.129

Search

Advanced search

Quick links