Influence of abdominal obesity on circulating oxidative and inflammatory markers in overweight/obese adult men (1107.7)

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine whether overweight/obese adults with abdominal adiposity exhibit greater oxidative stress and inflammatory burden compared with overweight/obese adults without abdominal obesity. 38 sedentary, adult males free of cardiometabolic disease were studied: 12 normal weight (age 54±2 yr; BMI 22.4±0.6 kg/m2; waist circumference [WC] 82.9+1.4 cm); 15 overweight/obese with WC <102 cm (58+2 yr; 28.1+0.3 kg/m2; 95.5+0.8 cm); and 11 overweight/obese with WC >102 cm (58+3 yr; 29.8+0.7 kg/m2; 107.9+1.7 cm). Plasma concentrations of oxidized low‐density lipoprotein (ox‐LDL), C‐reactive protein (CRP), tumor necrosis factor (TNF)‐α, interleukin (IL)‐6 and IL‐18 were determined by ELISA. Plasma oxLDL (48.7±2.3 U/L), CRP (0.4±0.1 mg/L), TNF‐α (1.5±0.1 pg/mL), IL‐6 (1.3±0.2 pg/mL) and IL‐18 (214±12 pg/mL) levels were lowest in normal weight controls. Importantly, overweight/obese men with abdominal adiposity had significantly higher CRP (2.5±0.7 vs 1.1±0.2 mg/L), IL‐6 (2.9±0.7 vs 1.5±0.3 pg/mL) and IL‐18 (292±15 vs 228±16 pg/mL) levels than overweight/obese adults without abdominal adiposity. There were no group differences in either ox‐LDL (58.4±7.5 vs 55.0±6.0 U/L) or TNF‐α (2.1±0.2 vs 2.6±0.6 pg/mL) amongst the overweight/obese men. These results suggest that abdominal obesity is associated with a more unfavorable inflammatory phenotype in overweight/obese men.