Study of the relationships between insulin resistance and the levels of serum resistin in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease

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Objective To measure levels of serum resistin in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and explore the relationship between serum resistin and insulin resistance,and the role of serum resistin in the pathogenesis and progression of NAFLD.Methods 53 patients (including 30males and 23 females) with NAFLD and the 28 control subjects (including 16males and 12females) were enrolled in this study.The height,weight,waist circumstance,hip girth and blood pressure of all subjects were obtained by standard methods.To all the subjects,the parameters including fasting blood glucose (FBG),triglyceride ( TG),total cholesterol (TC),high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ( HDL-c ),lowdensity lipoprotein cholesterol ( LDL-c ),alanine aminotransferase ( ALT),aspartate aminotransferase (AST)and gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT) were measured.Serum resistin was measured by electrochemiluminescence immunoassay (ECLIA) and fasting serum insulin (FINS) were measured by enzymelinked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).Body mass indexes (BMI),waist hip ratio (WHR),body fat percentage ( BF％ ) were calculated with formula.Homeostasis model assessment was applied to assess the status of insulin resistance index (HOMA-IR).The relationships between serum resistin and various parameters in patients with NAFLD were observed and analyzed by statistical methods.Results There were no significant differences in the number of cases,average age,compositions of sex and BF％ between the NAFLD group and the control group ( P ＞ 0.05).In the NAFLD group,systolic blood pressure ( SBP),diastolic blood pressure(DBP).The waist circumference,hip girth and BMI and WHR were higher than those of control group ( t =3.54,3.32,3.56,5.85,5.56,4.10,P =0.001).There were no significant differences on the level of TC,HDL-c,LDL-c between the NAFLD group and the control group ( P ＞0.05).In the NAFLD group,FBG,TG,AST were higher than those of control group ( P =0.001,P =0.004,P =0.001 ).The levels of serum resistin,FINS,HOMA-IR,ALT and GGT in NAFLD group were significantly higher than those of control group,and there was significant difference between two groups ( P =0.0005).There was no significant correlation between serum resistin and age,BMI,WHR,BF％,FBG,TG,TC,HDL-C,LDL-C,AST in NAFLD group ( P ＞ 0.05).The levels of serum resistin in patients with NAFLD were positively correlated with GGT,ALT,FINS,HOMA-IR ( r =0.354,0.391,0.875,0.881,P ＜0.05 or ＜0.01 ).After multiple stepwise regression analysis,the results showed that HOMA-IR was the most important factor for affecting the levels of serum resistin.The levels of serum resistin in male and female patients with NAFLD were higher than those of control group ( P ＜0.05).But no statistical difference was found between males and females in two groups ( P ＞ 0.05).Conclusions The levels of serum resistin in patients with NAFLD were significantly higher than those of controls.Serum resistin in patients with NAFLD was closely correlated with insulin resistance,and it may participate in the pathogenetic progress of NAFLD.Serum resistin in patients with NAFLD might be associated with hepatic insulin resistance,and it has no correlations with obesity-related insulin resistance.Serum resistin in patients with NAFLD may participate in the inflammation of fatty liver disease as inflammatory cytokines. Key words: Fatty liver/BL; Resistin/BL; Insulin resistance