ESPE Abstracts

Background: Obesity is considered to be a chronic inflammatory state in which the dysfunction of adipose tissue plays a central role. Adipose tissue is known to express and secrete a variety of products known as ‘adipokines’ including leptin, adiponectin, resistin, and visfatin, as well as cytokines and chemokines such as tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-6, and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1.

Objective and hypotheses: The aim of this study is to evaluate the inflammation markers and their correlation with insulin resistance in obese adolescents.

Method: 78 obese children (38 male; age 14.3±1.8 years) and 60 healthy adolescents (21 male; age 14.9±2.2 years) were included in the study. BMI-SDS, waist/hip circumference, blood pressure were recorded. Serum fasting lipid profile, glucose, insulin, plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1), TNF-α, adiponectin levels of obese adolescents were compared with healthy controls. The homeostasis model assessment for insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) was calculated as a marker of insulin resistance.

Results: Obese adolescents had significantly higher serum triglyceride, LDL cholesterol, insulin, HOMA-IR and PAI-1 and lower HDL-cholesterol and TNF-α levels compared with controls. Serum PAI-1 levels positively correlated wih HOMA-IR whilst serum TNF-α negatively correlated with BMI and HOMA-IR in obese adolescents (P<0.05). The insulin resistant group had higher BMI, insulin, PAI-1 and lower TNF-α levels (P<0.05).

Conclusion: Obese adolescents had significantly increased PAI-1 levels as compared with the control group. A positive correlation between PAI-1 levels and indices of insulin resistance was demonstrated in this study. Our results suggest PAI-1 can be used as a marker of insulin resistance in obese adolescents.