Hyperleptinemia and Peripheral WBCs in Nephropathy Associated with Type 2 Diabetes, HATEM DARWISH, AHMAD TAHA, HEBA SHEREEF, MARIANNE S. MAKBOUL and TAMER HIFNAWY
Abstract
Aim: Peripheral white blood cell (WBC) count has been shown to be associated with insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, coronary artery disease (CAD), stroke and diabetes micro-and macrovascular complication. Leptin's hematopoietic or proinflammatory role has been experimentally reported. We investigated whether serum leptin concentrations are associated with white blood cell (WBC) counts in diabetic nephropathy patients of type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Research Design and Methods: We studied three groups of patients according to albuminuria level: normal (18 patients), micrialbuminuria (17 patients) and third group with overt proteinuria (21 patients). The total and differential leukocyte profiles of peripheral blood were measured and plasma leptin was examined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.
Results: In our study, we showed a significant higher leptin level (p=0.05) and neutrophilic counts (p=0.017) in diabetic nephropathy patients but failed to show an association between leptin level and TLC or neutrophilia.
Conclusion: Our study confirmed a significant hyper-liptenemic state and higher neutrophilic counts in diabetic nephropathy patients of type 2 diabetes mellitus. These finding might be reinforcement of importance of inflammation in the pathogenesis of this microvascular complication of diabetes.