Association between interleukin 1β and interleukin 10 concentrations: A cross-sectional study in young adolescents in Taiwan

Abstract

Background: In adults, low circulating interleukin 10 (IL10) has been associated with obesity and type 2 diabetes. However, studies investigating IL10 in overweight and obese children have yielded conflicting results. The aim of this study was to investigate factors associated with serum IL10 concentration in young Chinese adolescents.Methods: Young adolescents (n=325) ages 13.33±1.10 years were recruited into the cross-sectional study from 2010 to 2011. Parameters of obesity, individual components of MetS, iron status and serum IL10 were evaluated.Results: Compared with their normal weight counterparts, overweight adolescents had lower serum IL10 but higher TNFα, nitric oxide (NO) and IL1β concentrations (all p<0.05). Obese adolescents had increased IL1β but decreased hepcidin concentration compared with normal weight (p<0.01 and p<0.05; respectively). A strong inverse relationship (p<0.0001) was found between IL10 and pro-inflammatory cytokines (TNFα and IL1β). Multivariate linear regression analysis showed serum IL1β was significantly correlated with IL10 (β=-0.156, p<0.0001). When overweight and obese adolescents were assessed separately from normal weight, only IL1β was inversely associated with serum IL10 (β=-0.231, p=0.0009). The association between IL10 and IL1β was weaker in adolescents with normal weight (β=-0.157, p=0.0002), after adjusting for gender, TNFα, IFNγ and NO.Conclusions: Our study confirmed that low IL10 concentration is associated with overweight and obesity in young adolescents. We also demonstrated for the first time that pro-inflammatory cytokine IL1β is independently associated with IL10. A decline in IL10 concentration in overweight and obese adolescents may further contribute to the IL1β-mediated inflammatory environment associated with obesity. © 2013 Chang et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.