Leptin as a predictor of cardiovascular disease : a cross-sectional study in a sample of Jordanian patients

Abstract EN

Objective: To investigate whether elevated serum leptin levels correlate positively with the occurrence of cardiovascular disease in the randomly selected sample of patients.

Methods: The study enrolled 630 subjects, 322 females and 308 males, who were randomly selected among patients attending the outpatient clinic of Endocrinology and Diabetes in King Hussein Medical Center, Royal Medical Services, Jordan.

Diabetes was diagnosed according to American Diabetes Association (ADA) criteria, and blood samples were analyzed using standard biochemical kits at KHMC laboratory.

The Data collected were later analysed using SPSS IBM software and Receiver Operating Characteristic Curves were used to determine the positive correlation of elevated serum leptin levels among individuals suffering from cardiovascular disease.

Results: This study revealed a positive relation between the occurrence of cardiovascular disease and serum leptin levels, with the strongest association being observed among males , with an area under the curve ( AUC) of 0.734 as compared to AUC of 0.658 for the female group and 0.588 for both genders together .

Significant difference was also observed between diabetic and non- diabetic individuals of both genders, with mean serum leptin levels of 20.19±13.47 and 16.1009±15.98 respectively.

Conclusion: Our results confirm that serum leptin levels are higher in patients with clinically evident CVD, however further data are needed to justify it’s clinical use as a predictor of CVD .

Acknowledgement of the limitations of this study may aid in future attempts to demonstrate this relation through conducting similar studies aiming to shed light on this interesting relation which will help us understand with further detail the pathophysiology of obesity- related cardiovascular disease.