Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Anthropometric parameters such as: waist circumference, hips circumference, or arm circumference allow to find a correlation between the obesity and the risk of some metabolic disturbances (for example arm circumference index of upper part indicates the level of protein storage in the body).

Aim: The aim of the study was to assess the correlation among the arm circumference index, concentration of 25-OH vitamin D3 and lipid profile parameters in patients over 65.

Materials and methods: 94 patients over 65 years of age hospitalized in the Department of Geriatrics were enrolled to the study. Results of biochemical parameters were red from the patients’ medical records. Arm circumference was measured in accordance with generally accepted method. The obtained data were statistically analyzed using STATISTICA with α=0.05.

Results: The group consists 68 women 72.34, and 26 men 27.66%, with average age as 77.55±6.76 years, The mean value of arm circumference in analyzed group was 28.84±4.31 cm, mean concentration of 25-OH vitamin D3 in the studied group was 14.18±5.60 ng/ml, total cholesterol 184.39±52.12 mg/dl, LDL cholesterol 109.93±41.31 ng/ml, HDL cholesterol 50.29±18.22 ng/ml, and triglycerides 128.87±74.02 mg/dl. There were no statistical significance observed in current study between the circumference of the arm and the concentration of 25-OH vitamin D3 in the analyzed group of patients (R=0.16; P=0.1399). We did not observed any statistical significance between arm circumference and total cholesterol (R=0.11; P=0.3452), arm circumference and HDL cholesterol (R=0.15; P=0.1764) either. There were observed statistically significant negative correlation between arm circumference and HDL cholesterol (R=−0.31; P=0.0041). In addition statistical significant positive correlation was observed between arm circumference and triglyceride levels (R=0.31; P=0.0041).

Conclusion: The study indicates that the measurement of arm circumference is an easy and fast method which allow the assessment of lipid profile disorders in a group of patients over 65.