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Serum resistin correlates with central obesity but weakly with insulin resistance in Chinese children and adolescents

International Journal of Obesity volume 33, pages 424–439 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Objective:

Resistin has been linked with obesity and hypothesized as a potential marker of insulin resistance in addition to being linked with acute inflammation. However, these links are still highly controversial in humans. Our goal was to examine resistin levels in relation to obesity, insulin resistance and inflammation markers in a large population of Asian children and adolescents.

Methods:

Children and adolescents (n=3472) aged 6–18 years, boys (n=1765) and girls (n=1707), were assessed for body size parameters, pubertal development, blood lipids, glucose, insulin, resistin, C-reactive protein (CRP), adiponectin and complement C3 (C3) levels.

Results:

Resistin increased with central obesity in both genders but not with simple adiposity in boys. Several markers associated with central obesity correlated in a gender-specific fashion with plasma resistin. Waist circumference, fat-mass percentage, waist-to-height ratio and body mass index (BMI) positively correlated with resistin in both genders. Blood lipids such as triglycerides, nonesterified fatty acids (NEFA) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, diastolic and systolic blood pressure correlated positively with resistin in boys. NEFA, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (negatively) and inflammation markers, such as CRP and C3, positively correlated with resistin in girls. There was no correlation between resistin and adiponectin, and no association of adiponectin with resistin quintiles in either boys or girls. In both boys and girls, resistin tended to decrease with age, with girls having higher levels than boys. Few indices of insulin resistance were linked with plasma resistin in either gender.

Conclusion:

In this population, plasma resistin levels are a weak biochemical marker of metabolic dysfunction defined by central obesity, adiposity and inflammation and does not predict insulin resistance. Only a small proportion of resistin variation can be explained by factors related to metabolic syndrome, suggesting that resistin is not strongly implicated in a concentration-dependent fashion in any of the examined pathologies.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from CIHR (KC: No. MOP-64446), Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission (JM: No. H030930030031), National Natural Science Foundation of China (JM: Nos. 30671804 and 30470645); Hubei Provincial Science Foundation (No. 2003CA022) and the FRSQ-NSFC Quebec-China exchange program (KC).

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  1. M Li and A Fisette: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Endocrinology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, P.R. China

    M Li & J-Y Deng

  2. Department of Endocrinology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, P.R. China

    M Li & J-Y Deng

  3. Centre de Recherche de l’Hôpital Laval, Université Laval, Québec, Canada

    A Fisette & K Cianflone

  4. Department of Epidemiology, Capital Institute of Pediatrics, Beijing, P.R. China

    X-Y Zhao & J Mi

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Li, M., Fisette, A., Zhao, XY. et al. Serum resistin correlates with central obesity but weakly with insulin resistance in Chinese children and adolescents. Int J Obes 33, 424–439 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2009.44

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