Clinical features associated with circulating concentration of soluble leptin receptor in patients with diabetes

We aimed to determine if there were any clinical features that were significantly associated with the circulating concentration of soluble leptin receptor (OB-Re) in 67 Japanese subjects with diabetes mellitus. The characteristics evaluated included age, height, body weight, body mass index (BMI), systolic and diastolic blood pressure, duration of diabetes, haemoglobin A(1C) and blood lipid concentrations, urinary albumin excretion rate, circulating concentrations of leptin, tumour necrosis factor-a (TNF-alpha), TNF-a receptor 1 and genotypes of the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) gene. We found statistically significant negative correlations between circulating OB-Re concentration and body weight, BMI, diastolic blood pressure, concentrations of leptin and TNF-alpha receptor 1. Serum OB-Re concentration was not associated with any of the other clinical characteristics that were measured, or with the different ACE genotypes. Our results suggest that OB-Re might have an important influence on the biological activity of leptin in diabetic subjects.