Research

Hormonal

HOMA-IR cut-off values for identifying metabolic syndrome should be lowered and adjusted for age and gender rather than using fixed population percentiles, as lower thresholds (e.g., 1.85-2.05) better identify cardio-metabolic risk.

If you are being screened for insulin resistance using HOMA-IR, do not assume a single 'normal' number applies to you. Your risk profile changes with age and gender. For non-diabetic women, the threshold for concern drops as they age past 50. Ask your provider to interpret your HOMA-IR score in the context of your specific metabolic risk factors (blood pressure, lipids, waist size) rather than a generic population average.

GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
In Spanish population the threshold value of HOMA-IR drops from 3.46 using 90th percentile criteria to 2.05 taking into account of MetS components.
Pilar Díz et al. · BMC Endocrine Disorders · 2013

Why this rating

Large cross-sectional study (n=2459) with robust statistical methods (ROC regression), but observational design limits causal inference.

Source

Insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) cut-off values and the metabolic syndrome in a general adult population: effect of gender and age: EPIRCE cross-sectional study

Pilar Díz et al. · BMC Endocrine Disorders · 2013

DOI 10.1186/1472-6823-13-47

cross_sectional · n=2459Cited 540×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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