A randomised trial examining inflammatory signaling in acutely induced hyperinsulinemia and hyperlipidemia in normal weight women-the reprometabolic syndrome

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 16; no. 3; p. e0247638
• Main Authors: Tannous, Andrew, Bradford, Andrew P, Kuhn, Katherine, Fought, Angela, Schauer, Irene, Santoro, Nanette
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 25-03-2021; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Abnormalities; Biology and Life Sciences; Carbon monoxide; Chemokines; Coefficient of variation; Colony-stimulating factor; Complications; Cytokines; Diabetes; Diabetes mellitus; Editing; Endocrinology; Eotaxin; Fatty acids; Gonadotropin-releasing hormone; Gonadotropins; Granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor; Growth factors; Gynecology; Health care facilities; Hyperlipidemia; Immunoassay; Infertility; Inflammation; Insulin resistance; Interferon; Interleukin 10; Interleukin 12; Interleukin 13; Interleukin 15; Interleukin 16; Interleukin 2; Interleukin 4; Interleukin 5; Interleukin 6; Interleukin 7; Interleukin 8; Leukocytes (granulocytic); Lipids; Medicine; Medicine and Health Sciences; Menstruation; Metabolism; Methodology; Monocyte chemoattractant protein 1; Mountains; Obesity; Obstetrics; Pituitary (anterior); Pituitary gland; Proteins; Signaling; Tumor necrosis factor-TNF; Vascular endothelial growth factor; Weight; Weight control; Womens health; γ-Interferon; United States > US
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0247638

Obesity, is a state of chronic inflammation, characterized by elevated lipids, insulin resistance and relative hypogonadotropic hypogonadism. We have defined the accompanying decreased Luteinizing Hormone (LH), Follicle-Stimulating Hormone (FSH), ovarian steroids and reduced pituitary response to Gonadotropin-releasing Hormone (GnRH) as Reprometabolic syndrome, a phenotype that can be induced in healthy normal weight women (NWW) by acute infusion of free fatty acids and insulin.
To identify potential mediators of insulin and lipid-related reproductive endocrine dysfunction.
Secondary analysis of crossover study of eumenorrheic reproductive aged women of normal Body Mass Index (BMI) (<25 kg/m2) at an academic medical center.
Participants underwent 6-hour infusions of either saline/heparin or insulin plus fatty acids (Intralipid plus heparin), in the early follicular phase of sequential menstrual cycles, in random order. Euglycemia was maintained by glucose infusion. Frequent blood samples were obtained.
Pooled serum from each woman was analyzed for cytokines, interleukins, chemokines, adipokines, Fibroblast Growth Factor-21 (FGF-21) and markers of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress (CHOP and GRP78). Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used to compare results across experimental conditions.
Except for Macrophage Inflammatory Protein-1β (MIP-1β), no significant differences were observed in serum levels of any of the inflammatory signaling or ER stress markers tested.
Acute infusion of lipid and insulin, to mimic the metabolic syndrome of obesity, was not associated with an increase in inflammatory markers. These results imply that the endocrine disruption and adverse reproductive outcomes of obesity are not a consequence of the ambient inflammatory environment but may be mediated by direct lipotoxic effects on the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian (HPO) axis.