Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Serum ferritin concentration was found to be related with dyslipidemia, hypertension and abdominal adiposity. The aim of this study is to evaluate the correlations between serum ferritin concentrations and metabolic risk markers in obesity.

Methods: Obese 534 women were enrolled into the study. The patients were divided into three tertiles according to the serum ferritin concentrations. The mean serum ferritin concentration was 9.96±4.16 ng/ml in Group I (n=175), 28.03±6.85 ng/ml in Group II (n=179), and 81.62±42.10 ng/ml in Group III (n=180). The groups were compared for metabolic risk markers regards of cardiovascular disease.

Results: The mean serum ferritin concentration of the whole group was 40.16 ng/ml. Body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), cholesterol, triglyceride, blood pressure, fasting glucose and insulin, HOMA and uric acid were significantly high in Group III compared to Group I (P<0.05). Except for uric acid all these parameters were significantly higher in Group III compared to Group II (P<0.05) as well.

Conclusion: The correlation between whole body iron storage and the components of metabolic syndrome was reported in several studies previously. Ferritin is also known to be a marker of inflammation and increases in cardiovascular disease. Here in this study we defined the correlation between increment of serum ferritin concentrations and metabolik risk markers regards of cardiovascular risk. So serum ferritin levels can be suggested as a risk marker for atherosclerotic disease.