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BMI and waist circumference are practical, economically viable predictors of insulin resistance, despite visceral fat being the strongest biological predictor.
For routine health checks, use waist circumference and BMI. They are cheap, easy, and good enough predictors of insulin resistance risk, even if they are not as accurate as MRI or DEXA scans for measuring visceral fat.
ModerateQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
Therefore, BMI and waist circumference are probably better predictors to be used for insulin resistance for economic reasons.
Why this rating
Based on the authors' interpretation of measurement costs vs. accuracy.
Source
Associations of Different Adipose Tissue Depots with Insulin Resistance: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Observational Studies
Mingzhi Zhang et al. · Scientific Reports · 2015
DOI 10.1038/srep18495
Meta-analysis · 40 studiesCited 171×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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- Visceral fat mass exhibits the strongest positive correlation with insulin resistance (measured by HOMA-IR) among all adipose tissue depots and obesity indices.Good
- Lower extremity (leg) fat mass has no significant correlation with insulin resistance, distinguishing it from trunk/visceral fat depots.Good
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