Abstract 17000: Adipokines and Subclinical Myocardial Injury Following Bariatric Surgery

Abstract

Background: Bariatric surgery results in marked weight loss and has many cardiometabolic benefits. Adipokines, proteins secreted by adipose tissue with diverse metabolic effects, are affected by bariatric surgery. Whether favorable changes in adipokines after bariatric surgery are associated with improvements in cardiac biomarkers is unknown. Methods: We studied 294 bariatric surgery patients and 294 controls matched on age, sex, BMI, and diabetes in the Geisinger Obesity Registry. We measured serum markers of subclinical cardiac injury (high-sensitivity cardiac troponin I [hs-cTnI]), cardiac fibrosis (galectin-3), and adipokines (adiponectin, leptin, resistin, visfatin) prior to surgery and 6-18 months post-surgery in bariatric surgery patients and at similar intervals in controls. We used linear regression to evaluate the associations of changes in log-transformed adipokines with changes in log-transformed hs-cTnI and galectin-3. Results: Participants (mean age 45; 83% female; 97% White; mean BMI 47 kg/m 2 ) undergoing bariatric surgery lost 38.5 kg and matched controls gained 0.4 kg on average. Leptin, resistin, visfatin, hs-cTnI and galectin-3 decreased while adiponectin increased in bariatric surgery participants. There were no significant changes in any biomarkers in control participants. Increasing adiponectin and decreasing leptin were associated with decreases in hs-cTnI, but these associations were attenuated by adjustment for weight loss ( Table ). Decreasing resistin was linked to decreasing hs-cTnI and galectin-3, and decreasing visfatin with decreasing galectin-3, independent of weight loss. Conclusion: Bariatric surgery induced weight loss results in favorable changes in adipokines, which are associated with reversal of subclinical myocardial injury, and to a lesser degree, with decreasing myocardial fibrosis. Associations for some adipokines were weight loss-dependent, while others were independent of weight loss.