Endocrine Abstracts

Purpose: Available data associate lipids concentrations in men with BMI, anabolic steroids, age, and certain cytokines. Data are less clear in women, especially across the full adult lifespan, and when segmented by pre- and postmenopausal status.

Methods: Subjects: 120 healthy women in Olmsted County, MN, USA, a stable well studied clinical population. Dependent variables: measurements of 10-hr fasting high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and triglycerides (TG). Independent variables: testosterone, estrone, estradiol, 5-alpha-dihydrotestosterone (DHT) and sex-hormone binding globulin (SHBG, by mass spectrometry); insulin, glucose, and albumin; abdominal visceral, subcutaneous and total abdominal fat (AVF, SCF, TAF by computerized tomography (CT) scan); and a panel of seven cytokines (by ELISA). Multivariate forward selection linear-regression analysis was applied.

Results: Lifetime data: HDL-C was correlated jointly with age (P=0.0001, positively), AVF (P=0.0001, negatively), and IL-6 (0.0063, negatively), together explaining 28.1% of its variance (P=2.3×10⁻⁸). TC was associated positively with multivariate age only (P=6.9×10⁻⁴, 9.3% of variance). TG’s were predicted by SHBG (P=0.0115), AVF (P=0.0001), and IL-6 (P=0.0016) all positively (P=1.6×10⁻¹², 38.9% of variance). Non-HDL-C and LDL-C were correlated positively with both TAF and IL-8 (P=2.0×10⁻⁵, 16.9% of variance; and P=0.0031, 9.4% of variance, respectively). Pre- vs postmenopausal comparisons identified specific relationships that were stronger in pre- than postmenopausal individuals, and vice versa. Age was a stronger correlate of LDL-C; IL-6 of TG and HDL; and SHBG and TAF both of non-HDL-C in pre- than postmenopausal women. Conversely, SHBG, AVF, IL-8, adiponectin were stronger correlates of TG; AVF and testosterone of HDL-C; and age of both non-HDL and LDL in post- than premenopausal women.

Conclusion: Our data delineate correlations of TAF and IL-8 (both positively) with non-HDL-C and LDL-C in healthy women across the full age range of 21–79 year along with even more specific associations in pre- and postmenopausal individuals.