Adiponectin/leptin ratio and metabolic syndrome in a Mexican American population

Adiponectin and leptin play critical roles in the development of Metabolic Syndrome (MetS). This study was designed to assess the feasibility of using circulating levels of adiponectin and leptin for the early diagnosis of MetS.

A cross-sectional study was performed using data from 367 participants randomly selected from a well-characterized cohort of Mexican-Americans living at the US-Mexico border.

Significant differences in circulating levels of adiponectin and leptin were observed between males and females. Adiponectin/leptin correlated significantly with MetS in this population. A receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) analysis demonstrated that adiponectin/leptin showed a high sensitivity (70.9% for males, 78.9% for females) and specificity (90.2% for males and 69.8% for females) for the diagnosis of MetS, independent of BMI measurements.

These data support the central role of adiponectin and leptin in MetS, and demonstrated that adiponectin/leptin can be used as a highly sensitive and specific biomarker for MetS.