Background: To ascertain whether the associations between obesity, inflammation, and insulin resistance established in human adult studies are found among adolescents.
Methods: We contrasted 36 obese and 24 lean youth on fasting glucose, insulin levels, lipid profile, hemoglobin A1C, markers of hepatic function, white blood cell count, C-reactive protein (CRP) and fibrinogen levels. The cytokines IL-6, TNF-α, IFN-γ, IL-10 and IL-4 and the adipokines leptin, resistin, and adiponectin were also compared between the two groups. The fasting glucose and insulin values were used to estimate the degree of insulin resistance with the homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR). T-tests and correlations were run to examine group differences and associations between groups. In addition, regression analyses were used to ascertain whether the markers of inflammation were predictive of the degree of insulin resistance.
Results: Although obese adolescents had clear evidence of insulin resistance, only CRP, fibrinogen and leptin were elevated; there were no group differences in pro- or anti-inflammatory cytokines nor adiponectin and resistin. Anthropometric measures of obesity and level of insulin resistance were highly correlated to the acute phase reactants CRP and fibrinogen; however, the degree of insulin resistance was not predicted by the pro- or anti-inflammatory cytokine markers. Obese adolescents had higher white blood cell counts. In addition they had higher circulating alanine aminotransferase concentrations and lower circulating albumin and total protein than lean adolescents, possibly as a result of hepatocyte damage from fatty liver.
Conclusion: Unlike rodent or adult studies, we found that wide-spread systemic inflammation is not necessarily associated with insulin resistance among adolescents. This finding does not support the current paradigm that the associations between obesity and insulin resistance are, to a significant degree, mediated by low grade systemic inflammation. These data support the need for further adolescent studies to explore these associations.