BMI categories
When SSc patients were subdivided by BMI categories, some meaningful
differences emerged (Table 3). As expected, leptin (Figure 1) and
visfatin levels were significantly higher in obese than in other BMI
classes (p=0.0001 and p=0.002 , respectively), while no
significant changes were observed for resistin. Obese SSc patients also
had the highest serum levels of IL-17A
(p=0.01 ),
IL-2 (p=0.001 ) and IL-10 (p=0.01 ). Adiponectin levels did
not significantly change among the BMI subgroups, but the
leptin/adiponectin ratio, a functional biomarker of adipose tissue
inflammation, was significantly higher in obese patients
(p=0.0001 ). A striking finding was the increased TNFα levels
observed in underweight SSc patients. The latter had significantly
higher TNFα levels (p=0.01 ) than the other BMI classes (Table 3,
Figure 2). IL-17A, leptin, and visfatin levels were found to be
positively correlated, and TNFα negatively, with increasing BMI values
(table 4). BMI was also correlated with ESR, CRP, triglycerides and
cholesterol levels (Table 4).