Endocrine Abstracts

Up to date, many studies were performed regarding the relationship between obesity and inflammation, and exophthalmos which is developed in thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy (Graves’ ophthalmopathy). Several studies suggest that transforming orbital preadipocytes into adipocytes may cause exophthalmos because of the inflammation. Therefore, we examined the relationship exophthalmos and obesity which is also called low-grade systemic inflammation. We investigated the relationship between Hertel exophthalmometry values and plasma leptin, adiponectin, TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-1β levels in 52 obese and 34 healthy men who don’t smoke and have any systemic illness.

Plasma leptin, adiponectin, TNFα, IL-6 and IL-1β levels were 25.28±8.98 ng/mL, 0.41±0.24 μg/mL, 305.53±153.82 pg/mL, 63.99±20.30 pg/mL ve 95.22±69.54 pg/mL respectively, in obese group, whereas these levels were 2.66±1.81 ng/mL, 1.17±0.98 μg/mL, 69.31±50.22 pg/mL, 18.84±11.12 pg/mL ve 21.77±6.84 pg/mL respectively, in control group. Hertel exophthalmometry values were found as 18.90±1.63 mm in obese group and 16.88±1.69 mm in control group. When obese group’s variables compared to control group’s variables, plasma adiponectin levels were found significantly lower whereas the other variables were found significantly higher in obese group (P<0.05). In multiple regression models using backwards stepwise regression, we only found that the dependent variable, BMI, was predicted by leptin and TNF-α (P=0.004 ve P=0.052, respectively).

Our results suggest that the inflammation which is resulted by secreted adipokines and cytokines from adipose tissue might be associated with exophthalmos in obesity. Nevertheless, the lack of correlation between Hertel exophthalmometry values and BMI, plasma leptin, adiponectin, TNFα, IL-6 and IL-1β levels shows that there is no directly relation between exophthalmos and adipokines which causes inflammation in obesity.