Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Obesity and metabolic disturbances constitute an important health problem in elderly women. Due to the multifactorial background of these disorders, assessment of the interaction between risk factors is still a significant element of prevention and health promotion in this group. Studies have shown, inter alia, the relationship between low physical activity and vitamin D deficiency with obesity and its complications. Furthermore vitamin D influences production of adipokines and the inflammatory response in adipose tissue.

Subject: The aim of our study was to estimate the association between selected adipokines, vitamin D concentrations, physical activity (PA) and visceral adiposity index (VAI) in postmenopausal women.

Material and Methods: The study sample consisted of 318 ethnic homogenous postmenopausal women, aged 50–60. Anthropometric (BMI, WC, WHR) and biochemical (TC, HDL,LDL, glucose, insulin, IL-6, TNFalpha, adiponectin, lutein) measurements and physical activity by IPAQ were performed. Body mass index (BMI), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) and visceral adiposity index (VAI) were calculated using the standard formulas.

Results: We observed significant negative correlations only between BMI, WC, insulin, HOMA and categorized physical activity. We have shown a negative significant association between leptin and vitamin 25 (OH)D concentrations (P = 0.007) and positive between adiponectin (P = 0.014) but we didn’t observe significant assiociation with TNF alpha and IL-6.

Conclusions: The results of the multiple linear regression analysis, revealed that vitamin D and HOMA were the factors influencing the concentration of adiponectin and leptin. Vitamin D and HOMA are independent factors significantly affecting leptin and adiponectin levels in contrary to VAI.