Association of the combined triglyceride-glucose and frailty index with incident asthma risk: a prospective cohort analysis from CHARLS.

OBJECTIVES

Limited investigation exists regarding the relationships among the triglyceride-glucose index-frailty index (TyGFI) and incident asthma. This study investigates the association between TyGFI and risk of incident asthma in older Chinese people by combining TyG and FI, using prospective cohort data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS).

METHODS

We used data from CHARLS Wave 1 (2011) as the baseline and Wave 3 (2015) as the follow-up. Cox hazard regression models were used to analyze the association between TyGFI and incident asthma risk. Restricted cubic spline (RCS) regression was used to test for nonlinearity, and stratified analyses were used to evaluate effect modification.

RESULTS

The highest TyGFI quartile showed the greatest risk (HR = 4.30, 95% CI: 2.66-6.95). A significant nonlinear association was observed, with asthma risk rising dramatically when TyGFI exceeded 1.343. Stratified analyses indicated interaction by age.

CONCLUSIONS

Higher TyGFI is significantly associated with risk of incident asthma in middle-aged and older Chinese adults, suggesting that integrating metabolic-frailty assessment may enhance the ability to identify individuals at high risk for incident asthma at an earlier stage.