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Ghrelin levels may be a useful marker for BMI, diabetes in women

Issue: January 2011

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American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2010

CHICAGO — Plasma ghrelin concentrations are inversely associated with BMI and negatively associated with the development of prevalent type 2 diabetes in women, new data suggest.

Researchers presented results of a study that examined 490 nondiabetic women included in the Women’s Health Study who later developed diabetes. The researchers also designated a representative subcohort of 561 women, also from the Women’s Health Study, as controls.

According to the results, there was an inverse relationship between plasma ghrelin levels and BMI in the representative subcohort and in the diabetes cohort across all quartiles of ghrelin levels (P<.0001 for all relationships). Ghrelin levels were also lower in women in the diabetes cohort vs. those in the subcohort (429.1 ng/dL vs. 579.3 ng/L; P<.001). In models adjusted for race and age, the researchers reported a decreasing risk of type 2 diabetes with increasing quartiles of ghrelin (P<.0001 for trend). This relationship persisted, albeit to slightly attenuated degree, in models that also adjusted for BMI and other traditional diabetes risk factors such as smoking, hypertension, cholesterol and hormone therapy (P=.01 for all trends).

“We confirm cross-sectional reports that ghrelin levels have an inverse relationship to BMI, and also have an inverse relationship with circulating leptin levels,” Jacqueline Danik, MD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, concluded in her presentation. “There appeared to be little relationship between ghrelin levels and calories consumed as measured by food frequency questionnaires.”

Danik added that their results suggested lower baseline ghrelin levels were negatively associated with the incident (or development of) type 2 diabetes, in concordance with previously published cross-sectional data. – by Eric Raible

For more information:

• Danik J. Abstract 19867. Presented at: American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2010; Nov. 13-17, 2010; Chicago.

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