Combined inflammatory-metabolic index tracks stroke risk
Participants in the highest tertile of the combined CTI-CVAI index had a 2.14-fold higher stroke risk than those in the lowest tertile.
Journal of Obesity
In a prospective cohort of 8,267 stroke-free adults aged 45 and older from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, researchers tracked 816 incident strokes over a mean follow-up of 8.37 years. The study evaluated the C-reactive protein-triglyceride-glucose index (CTI), the Chinese visceral adiposity index (CVAI), and their combined score, CTI-CVAI.
Both CTI and CVAI were independently associated with higher stroke risk in linear dose-response patterns. The combined CTI-CVAI score showed the strongest link, with participants in the highest tertile facing a 2.14-fold higher stroke risk (HR 2.14, 95% CI: 1.75–2.62) than those in the lowest tertile after multivariable adjustment. Furthermore, CTI-CVAI improved predictive discrimination with an AUC of 0.627 compared to 0.624 for the established TyG-CVAI metric.
Why it matters
Visceral adiposity, systemic inflammation, and insulin resistance often compound during aging to accelerate vascular decline. Combining markers for these interconnected metabolic pathways may sharpen long-term cardiovascular risk stratification in aging populations.
Caveats
The study relied on self-reported stroke diagnoses, and the overall predictive accuracy of the composite metric remained modest despite being statistically superior. In addition, the findings from this Chinese cohort may not generalize directly to other racial or ethnic groups.
The paper
Xiamen University · Guiqian International General Hospital
Journal of Obesity · 1 Jan 2026 · CC BY