Background:

The relationships between adhesion molecules and measures of obesity and metabolic syndrome in different ethnic populations are unclear.

Objective:

Our aim was to study the association between body mass index (BMI), waist-hip ratio (WHR) and the parameters of the metabolic syndrome with four different adhesion molecules, adjusting for potential confounders, in men and women from different ethnic origins.

Methods:

Soluble plasma adhesion molecules (sP-selectin, sE-selectin, intracellular adhesion molecule-1 (sICAM-1) and vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (sVCAM-1) were measured in 261 white (120 women), 188 African origin (99 women) and 215 South Asian (99 women) individuals living in South London. All were free from coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke and other cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes, drug therapy for hypertension or high lipids, hormone replacement therapy or oral contraceptive pill.

Results:

sE-selectin levels were positively and significantly associated with both BMI (P< 0.001) and WHR (P< 0.001). There were no major interactions with either sex or ethnicity. The strength of the association between sE-selectin and WHR was not affected by multiple adjustment for age, sex, ethnicity smoking, blood pressure, serum lipids and insulin (P< 0.001), whereas the association with BMI was attenuated by multiple adjustments (P= 0.037). An approximate 2% higher sE-selectin levels would be associated with a 1 unit higher BMI and a 0.01 unit greater WHR.

Conclusions:

The relationships between adhesion molecules and conventional measures of obesity are adhesion molecule specific and are strongest between sE-selectin and WHR.