Platelet-related cytokines among normal body mass index, overweight, and obese Malaysians

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Recent studies have reported that obesity is associated with platelet activation and systemic inflammation. Malaysia has the highest prevalence of obesity, hence, this research is performed to eval-uate the development of low-grade inflammation and platelet activation, measured using soluble CD40 ligand (sCD40L) and soluble P-selectin (sP-sel), and to determine their association with obesity. In addition, we as-sessed the mean platelet volume (MPV) and platelet count (PLT), which are novel parameters consistently asso-ciated with obesity. Methods and Study Design: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 112 healthy men and women from 3 main ethnic group (Malay, Chinese, and Indian) who were aged 18-60 years. The participants were categorized into normal body mass index (BMI), overweight and obese groups according to WHO criteria for BMI in Asian populations (18.5 kg/m2 < BMI < 35 kg/m2). Waist circumference (WC) was also measured and included in the analysis. Results: MPV, sCD40L, and sP-sel differed significantly among the normal BMI, over-weight, and obese groups (p < 0.05). Contrastingly, the PLT did not vary significantly among the 3 groups. In ad-dition, sP-sel levels correlated significantly with BMI (r=0.36, p=0.001) and WC (r=0.25, p=0.007) and MPV correlated significantly with BMI (r=0.2, p=0.001) and WC (r=0.2, p=0.003). Conclusions: Higher MPV and sP-sel levels in the obese participants than in the overweight and normal BMI participants indicated potentially high-er activation of platelets in people with obesity. Moreover, we observed higher sCD40L levels in obese partici-pants than in the overweight and normal BMI participants, suggesting a proinflammatory state in obese individu-als.