Current Issues of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences

Annales UMCS, Sectio DDD, Pharmacia, Vol. XXIV, N 4, 7

ARLETA MALECHA-JĘDRASZEK¹, HELENA DONICA¹, BEATA MATUSZEK², BEATA WOJTYSIAK-DUMA¹, ANDRZEJ NOWAKOWSKI²

¹ Department of Biochemistry Diagnostics, Medical University of Lublin, Poland

² Department of Endocrinology, Medical University of Lublin, Poland

Abstract

During the past few years a lot of attention has been paid to the potential role of adipose tissue in the development of type 2 diabetes Recent research studies have shown that adipose tissue is not only a passive depot storing triglyceride but also an active endocrine organ, which plays a key role in the integration of endocrine, metabolic, and inflammatory signals for the control of energy homeostasis secreting a variety of hormones and cytokines known as adipocytokines. One of these proteins that have attracted a lot of attention recently is adiponectin. Many experimental and clinical studies have suggested that low levels of adiponectin contribute to insulin resistance associated with obesity thus increasing the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The aim of this study was to compare serum adiponectin concentration between overweight and obese patients with type 2 diabetes and normal-weight subjects with no disturbances in carbohydrate metabolism and to evaluate the relationship between serum adiponectin concentration and metabolic parameters, such as insulin resistance indexes (IRI/G, HOMA-IR) and Quantitative Insulin Sensitivity Check Index in diabetic patients. Forty-five patients with type 2 diabetes were enrolled in this study (22 women and 23 men with mean age 60.1±10.3 years). The control group comprised 25 healthy subjects matched for age and gender to the study group. In diabetic patients the concentration of adiponectin was significantly lower compared to the control subjects. We observed significant negative correlations between adiponectin concentration and body mass, BMI, glucose and insulin level and values of HOMA-IR and IRI/G indexes. Furthermore, significant positive correlations were found between adiponectin concentration and age and values of QUICKI index. Taking into account the available literature reports as well as the results obtained during this study, it can be concluded that decreased adiponectin concentration in overweight and obese patients with type 2 diabetes in comparison to healthy subjects and the observed correlations of adiponectin with selected indexes of insulin resistance (IRI/G, HOMA-IR, QUICKI) may suggest a participation of this protein in the pathogenesis of insulin resistance in diabetic patients.

Keywords

diabetes, obesity, insulin resistance, adiponectin