Correlation of Serum Adiponectin Level with Insulin Resistance in Healthy Obese Individuals: A Case-control Study

Abstract

Introduction: Obesity, emerging as a worldwide health burden having potential risk for development of atherosclerosis, diabetes, coagulopathy, arthritis and metabolic syndrome. Obesity is classified in terms of various anthropometric modalities like Body Mass Index (BMI), Waist Circumference (WC) and Waist Hip Ratio (WHR) etc. Adipocyte secretes adiponectin that has an important role in energy homeostasis and lipid metabolism. Adiponectin level reduces in obesity and its deficiency results in higher incidence of insulin resistance. Adiponectin has insulin sensitising, antiatherogenic and anti inflammatory properties. Aim: To compare the level of serum adiponectin, fasting plasma insulin and Homeostatic Model Assessment for Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR) in healthy obese individuals with healthy non obese controls and also to find out the correlation of serum adiponectin with fasting plasma insulin level and HOMA-IR in healthy obese cases. Materials and Methods: This case-control study was conducted in Department of Biochemistry, MKCG MCH, Berhampur, Odisha, India, during the period of October 2019 to October 2020 which included 86 subjects. Of which 43 were healthy obese individuals and 43 were age and sex matched healthy non obese volunteers, in the age group of 20-45 years were taken as controls. About 4 mL of whole blood was collected to measure fasting plasma glucose, fasting plasma insulin and serum adiponectin. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16.0 was used to do the statistical analysis and for correlation Pearson correlation test was done. Results: In present study, maximum cases and controls were within the range of 20-35 years. Out of 43 cases, 25 were males and 18 were females and out of 43 controls, 27 were males and 16 were females. Insulin resistance and Fasting Plasma Glucose were significantly higher in healthy obese cases as compared to controls. Serum adiponectin in cases (2.35±0.77) was found to be significantly lower than controls (8.10±2.98). Present study found statistically significant negative correlation of serum adiponectin with fasting plasma insulin (r=-0.918, p<0.001) and HOMA-IR (r=-0.934, p<0.001). Conclusion: Negative correlation of adiponectin and positive correlation of insulin resistance in obesity suggest inflammation which may lead to development of metabolic syndrome. So adiponectin is a target for future research to reduce morbidity and mortality in relation to obesity.