Triglyceride–glucose (TyG) index has been proposed as a simple surrogate marker of insulin resistance. However, few studies have investigated the association of TyG index with heart failure (HF). We aimed to explore the relationship between TyG index and incident HF.

A total of 138,620 participants from the Kailuan study were included for analysis. TyG index was calculated as ln [fasting triglyceride (mg/dL) × fasting glucose (mg/dL) / 2]. Cox proportional hazard models were used to investigate the association between TyG index and the risk of HF. Restricted cubic spline analysis was applied to evaluate the dose-response relationship between TyG index and the risk of HF.

There were 1602 incident HF cases among the 138,620 participants during a median follow-up of 8.78 years. Compared with those in the lowest quartile group of TyG index, participants with the highest quartile of TyG index had a 24% higher risk of HF (HR=1.24, 95%CI=1.07-1.44) after adjusting for other risk factors. Restricted cubic spline analysis showed a significant J-shaped dose-response relationship between TyG index and risk of HF (P for non-linearity < 0.001). The significant association was still observed among the men and participants with or without abdominal obesity in subgroup analyses.

The TyG index was positively associated with the risk of HF, which indicates that the TyG index might be useful to identify people at high-risk for developing HF.