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Fasting insulin and HOMA-index changes in patients treated with valproic acid
M Mania1, L Javashvili, S Kasradze
1Tbilisi State Medical University, Department of Neuromedicine, Tbilisi, Georgia.
Abstract:
Our study was carried out to ascertain the role of valproic acid for inducing metabolic disorders like hyperinsulinemia, insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. Seventy-nine subjects were enrolled into the study. They were divided in 3 groups: 26 patients with epilepsy on VPA monotherapy and 28 patients with epilepsy on CBZ monotherapy and 25 healthy controls. Blood samples for fasting insulin, glucose, C-peptide, TG and HDL were collected. We compared insulin, C-peptide, C-peptide/insulin ratio, HOMA-IR, BMI, central obesity and metabolic syndrome in patients treated with VPA, patients treated with CBZ and in healthy controls. VPA treatment was associated with insulin resistance (30.8%) in opposite to CBZ treatment (7.1%). Metabolic syndrome existed in 34,6%, 14,3% and 12% among VPA, CBZ and control groups, respectively. There was no difference in C peptide/insulin ratio between study groups. Interestingly lean VPA treated patients showed high frequency of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome compared to lean CBZ treated patients and controls. Therefore we suppose that obesity should not be an obligatory factor for VPA induced metabolic disturbances. VPA treatment is associated with insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. This metabolic disorders were not connected with diminished hepatic insulin extraction. Although VPA treated patients showed central obesity predominance, we suggest that VPA can induce such metabolic and endocrine changes without obesity.
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