All eight obesity-related indices were positively associated with hospitalized AECOPD in both sexes, with sex-specific discriminative ability: AVI performed best in females, while in males VAI had the numerically highest AUC but most differences were not significant.
The overall prevalence of hospitalized AECOPD in the cohort was 27.3%, with no significant difference between males and females.
All eight obesity-related indices were positively associated with hospitalized AECOPD in both males and females.
In females, AVI had the highest AUC for discriminating hospitalized AECOPD, followed by CI and BRI, all significantly higher than BMI after Holm correction.
In males, VAI had the numerically highest AUC, but only BRI was significantly higher than BMI.
Only the sex-by-AVI interaction remained significant after multiple-comparison correction.
The authors conclude that anthropometric measures reflecting body fat distribution warrant further investigation as potential markers of AECOPD.
This study looked at 968 people with COPD admitted to a hospital in Western China and asked whether body-fat measures were linked to being hospitalized for a flare-up (acute exacerbation) versus being hospitalized for another reason. About 27% were in the flare-up group, with similar rates in men and women. Eight measures were examined, including BMI, waist-to-hip ratio and several indices combining waist size, height, or blood fats. All eight were linked to a higher likelihood of being hospitalized for a flare-up in both sexes. The measures differed in how well they distinguished flare-up admissions. In women, an index called the abdominal volume index (AVI) did best, and it, along with the conicity index and body roundness index, performed significantly better than BMI. In men, the visceral adiposity index had the highest value, but most differences between measures were not statistically significant; only the body roundness index clearly beat BMI. Only the sex difference for AVI held up after statistical correction. This research suggests that measures of where body fat is distributed may say more about flare-up risk than BMI alone, particularly in women. Because the study is a snapshot at one point in time, it cannot show that body fat causes flare-ups or predicts them in the future, and further research is needed.
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Upload Your LabsQin M, Qiao M, He W, Yang H, Xu X, Guo X. (2026). Obesity-Related Indices and Hospitalized Acute Exacerbation in COPD Patients: Sex-Stratified Associations from a Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study.. International journal of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. https://doi.org/10.2147/COPD.S639345