Distribution of serum paraoxon hydrolyzing activity in a large Spanish population using a routine automized method in...

This work was performed to adapt the manual laboratory method of measuring serum paraoxonase activity using a routine automatized method in the clinical laboratory and to study the distribution of paraoxonase activity in a large population from Alcoy, a region of Spain. The serum samples for the study were obtained from extractions of blood from 2891 individuals, distributed by sex and age groups, in a routine check in a primary care facility of Alcoy. Paraoxonase activity was assayed by measuring the release of p-nitrophenol according to a previously published method adapted to an automatized analyzer. The mean paraoxonase activity recorder was 70.2 +/- 16.5 IU/L. Paraoxonase activity in children (both males and females) was significantly lower (p < 0.0005) than in older individuals. Paraoxonase activity detected in males and females older than 56 was slightly lower than that detected in younger individuals, although in this case the difference was not statistically significant. The paraoxonase activity shows higher mean values in females than in males (p < 0.0005). Human paraoxonase activity shows a unimodal distribution pattern in the studied population, which is in contrast with other studies showing bimodal distribution.