Higher Circulating Adiponectin Concentrations Predict Incident Cancer in Type 2 Diabetes - The Adiponectin Paradox

Despite the beneficial cardiometabolic effects of adiponectin demonstrated in preclinical studies, paradoxically higher circulating adiponectin concentrations have been found in epidemiological studies to be associated with incident cardiovascular events, renal outcomes, and mortality in patients with diabetes. On the other hand, diabetes is also associated with an increased risk of cancer. Here, we investigated prospectively the association between circulating adiponectin concentrations and incident cancer using a cohort of exclusively individuals with type 2 diabetes.

Baseline serum adiponectin concentrations were measured in 5658 participants recruited from the Hong Kong West Diabetes Registry. The associations of circulating adiponectin concentrations with incident cancer and cancer-related deaths were evaluated using multivariable Cox regression analysis, with hazard ratio (HR) for adiponectin referring to the respective risk per doubling of serum adiponectin concentration.

Over a median-follow up of 6.5 years, 7.53% and 3% of participants developed cancer and had cancer-related deaths, respectively. Serum adiponectin concentrations were significantly higher in those who had incident cancer (9.8 μg/mL vs 9.1 μg/mL, P < 0.001) and cancer-related deaths (11.5 μg/mL vs 9.3 μg/mL, P < 0.001) compared with those without. Moreover, in multivariable analyses, serum adiponectin concentration was independently associated with both incident cancer (hazard ratio, 1.19; 95% confidence interval, 1.05-1.35; P = 0.006) and cancer-related deaths (hazard ratio, 1.23; 95% confidence interval, 1.03-1.47; P = 0.024).

Higher serum adiponectin concentration was independently associated with incident cancer and cancer-related deaths in type 2 diabetes, indicating that adiponectin paradox can be observed in another major diabetic complication in addition to cardiovascular and kidney diseases.