C-Reactive Protein Is Independently Associated With Glucose but Not With Insulin Resistance in Healthy Men
- Anne G. Niehoff, MD12,
- Timon W. van Haeften, MD, PHD3,
- N. Charlotte Onland-Moret, PHD12,
- Clara C. Elbers, MSC12,
- Cisca Wijmenga, PHD2 and
- Yvonne T. van der Schouw, PHD1
- 1Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands
- 2Complex Genetics Section, DBG-Department of Medical Genetics, University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands
- 3Department of Internal Medicine, University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands
- Address correspondence and reprint requests to Yvonne T. van der Schouw, PhD, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, Room 6.131 Stratenum, P.O. Box 85500, 3508 GA Utrecht, Netherlands. E-mail: y.t.vanderschouw{at}umcutrecht.nl
Recent studies have shown that low-grade inflammation is linked both to insulin resistance (1,2) and the metabolic syndrome (3,4) and may even predict the development of type 2 diabetes (5–8).
However, adipose tissue might play an important role in these relationships. There is still controversy about whether low-grade inflammation is an intermediate factor between obesity and insulin resistance or whether it has an independent effect on the development of type 2 diabetes through a mechanism separate from obesity.
The aim of this study was to explore whether low-grade inflammation (measured by plasma C-reactive protein (CRP) levels) was related to insulin resistance and to parameters of metabolic syndrome, independent of obesity.
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—
We conducted a cross-sectional, single-center study on 400 men aged between 40 and 80 years. The subjects, methods of recruitment, study procedures and anthropometrical and laboratory measurements have been described elsewhere (9). Twenty-one participants had prevalent diabetes and were excluded from the study; 13 participants were excluded because their level of CRP was above 10 mg/l and 2 because blood samples had been taken in a nonfasting state. Our final study population comprised 364 participants.
Various measures of obesity were obtained: weight, BMI, waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio, visceral and subcutaneous fat using ultrasound measurement (10), and total body fat mass using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry.
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