Blood leptin and C-reactive protein provide more sensitive assessment than blood lipids and other inflammatory biomarkers in overweight university students

Overweight is an inflammatory disease, and today's overweight university students will be tomorrow's overweight employees and parents; however, few studies have focused on the link between overweight and inflammation in university students. We hypothesized that students at higher body mass index (BMI) and percent body fat (BF%) would have higher blood concentrations of lipids and inflammatory biomarkers. A cross-sectional study including 110 university students was conducted at Texas Tech University. Overweight was determined by BMI using measured height and weight, and BF% was determined using bioelectric impedance analysis. Serum triglyceride and cholesterol concentrations were measured using enzymatic methods. Plasma concentrations of leptin, adiponectin, C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-6, and tumor necrosis factor α were measured using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Our results showed that higher BMI was associated with increased blood concentrations of CRP, leptin, and triglyceride (only in male subjects) and decreased blood adiponectin concentrations in university students. In addition, BF% was significantly correlated with blood concentrations of leptin and CRP. Female students had significantly higher blood concentrations of leptin, adiponectin, and CRP than did male students. In conclusion, blood inflammatory biomarkers, especially leptin and CRP, provide a more sensitive and accurate assessment than blood cholesterol and triglyceride for overweight individuals in this population. Leptin, adiponectin, and CRP are sex-dependent inflammatory biomarkers.