Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: Chemerin a novel adipokine; affects the lipid and glucose homeostasis along with adipose tissue metabolism. Elevated levels of peptide have shown to be associated with disruption of normal insulin function and systemic inflammation, which also results in hyperglycemia in clinical diabetes. This study aims to identify whether chemerin in conjunction with TNFα and hsCRP can act as screening marker to identify subclinical diabetes.

Methods: For this study, 52 asymptomatic healthy volunteers and 22 chronic diabetics (DM) were enrolled. Of the 52 study participants, 23 were classified as as newly diagnosed diabetics on the basis of impaired glucose tolernace test (NDM), subjects with normal glucose tolerance were classified as control (n=29).

Results: High chemerin level was observed in 23 NDM (P<0.01; ANOVA) compared to controls and DM. A strong positive association was also found between serum chemerin and FBS (P=0.029; r=0.254). Both the hsCRP and TNF α levels were elevated in subjects with DM compared to controls (P<0.01). Similar increase in TNFα levels were also observed in NDM compared to DM (P<0.001).

Conclusion: The preliminary findings suggest that chemerin may serve as a potential screening marker in diagnosis of DM or predicting the risk of development of diabetes in asymptomatic individual. Progression to clinical diabetes is associated with an increase inflammatory responses, which usually wanes off in established disease. Further studies with a larger panel of cytokines may predict a biomarker of subclinical diabetes.

Keywords: diabetes, cytokines, inflammation, hsCRP, chemerin