The Association Between Serum Uric Acid and the Cardiometabolic Phenotype Among Healthcare Workers in Azar Cohort Study

Abstract Background: As of now, it is unknown whether hyperuricemia can be considered as an independent risk factor or just as a marker to represent the correlation between uric acid and other metabolic syndrome (MetS) risk factors. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no other work has been reported to study this relationship between serum uric acid (SUA) and cardiometabolic phenotypes. In this work, we intend to study the correlation between SUA and the cardiometabolic phenotype among healthcare workers in Azar cohort study. Method: In this cross-sectional study, anthropometric measurements, serum fasting blood sugar (FBS), triglyceride (TG), cholesterol, high lipoprotein density (HDL), liver enzymes, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), SUA, creatinine (Cr), and blood pressures of 1458 healthcare workers were evaluated. MetS was diagnosed based on ATP III. We classified the participants into four cardiometabolic phenotypes, i.e., metabolically-healthy lean (MHL), metabolically-unhealthy lean (MUHL), metabolically-healthy obese (MHO), and metabolically-unhealthy obese (MUHO).Results: MHL (32.6%) and MHO (66%) have the highest prevalence rate in the first and second SUA tertiles, respectively, which are statistically significant (P-value ≤0.001). We observed an ascending trend in the mean values of WC, TG, cholesterol, low HDL, FBS, BUN, Cr, SBP, DBP, BMI, and liver enzymes from the first SUA tertile to the third SUA tertile (P-value <0.05). Compared to the lowest SUA tertile, the odds of MHO and MUHO increased by 2.29 (95% CI 1.46-3.59) and 5.38 (95%CI 3.45-9.39), respectively. In contrast, no similar trend was observed regarding the association between MUHL and the SUA tertile.Conclusion: We proposed the use of the easily-measured SUA level as a marker for early diagnosis of at-risk MUHL and MHO individuals to administer proper interventions. Further prospective works are needed to identify the effects of SUA on the progression of MetS in various body size subgroups.