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Clinical Studies and Practice

Ethnic differences in serum adipokine and C-reactive protein levels: the multiethnic cohort

International Journal of Obesity volume 38, pages 1416–1422 (2014)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background:

Ethnic disparities in metabolic disease risk may be the result of differences in circulating adipokines and inflammatory markers related to ethnic variations in obesity and body fat distribution.

Subjects/Methods:

In a cross-sectional design, we compared serum levels of leptin, adiponectin, C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) in control subjects (321 men and 930 women) from two nested case–control studies conducted within the Multiethnic Cohort Study consisting of whites, Japanese Americans (JA), Latinos, African Americans (AA) and Native Hawaiians (NH). General linear models were applied to evaluate ethnic differences in log-transformed serum biomarker levels before and after adjusting for body mass index (BMI) at cohort entry.

Results:

In comparison to whites, significant ethnic differences were observed for all biomarkers except TNF-α. JA men and women had significantly lower leptin and CRP levels than whites, and JA women also had lower adiponectin levels. Leptin was significantly higher in AA women (P<0.01), adiponectin was significantly lower in AA men and women (P=0.02 and P<0.001), and CRP and IL-6 were significantly higher in AA men and women. Lower adiponectin (P<0.0001) and CRP (P=0.03) levels were the only biomarkers in NH women that differed from whites; no statistically significant differences were seen for NH men and for Latino men and women. When adjusted for BMI at cohort entry, the differences between the lowest and the highest values across ethnic groups decreased for all biomarkers except adiponectin in men indicating that ethnic differences were partially due to weight status.

Conclusions:

These findings demonstrate the ethnic variations in circulating adipokine and CRP levels before and after adjustment for BMI. Given the limitation of BMI as a general measure of obesity, further investigation with visceral and subcutaneous adiposity measures are warranted to elucidate ethnicity-related differences in adiposity in relation to disparities in obesity-related disease risk.

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Acknowledgements

The Multiethnic Cohort Study has been supported by grants R37 CA 54281, R01 CA 63464, P01 CA033619 and UM1 CA164973 from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Partial support was also provided by the NCI grant P01 CA138338. SMC and NJO had been supported by Postdoctoral Training grant R25 CA 90956 from the NCI. The Analytical Biochemistry Shared Resource of the University of Hawaii Cancer Center is supported, in part, by grant P30 CA71789 from the NCI. We thank William Cooney and Jennifer Lai for their technical performance of serum biomarker assays.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Epidemiology Program, University of Hawaii Cancer Center, Honolulu, HI, USA

    Y Morimoto, Y Kim, U Lim, A A Franke, L R Wilkens, B Y Hernandez, L N Kolonel, L Le Marchand & G Maskarinec

  2. Department of Population Health Research, Alberta Health Services-Cancer Care, Calgary, Canada

    S M Conroy

  3. Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, OH, USA, Cincinnati

    N J Ollberding

  4. Public Health Sciences, University of Hawaii, HI, Honolulu, USA

    R V Cooney

  5. Department of Biomedical Sciences, Cancer Prevention and Control, Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute and Community and Population Health Research Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    M T Goodman

  6. Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    B E Henderson

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  1. Y Morimoto
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Correspondence to G Maskarinec.

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Morimoto, Y., Conroy, S., Ollberding, N. et al. Ethnic differences in serum adipokine and C-reactive protein levels: the multiethnic cohort. Int J Obes 38, 1416–1422 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2014.25

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