METABOLIC SYNDROME AND INFLAMMATION

Introduction. Patients with metabolic syndrome (MS) have an increased risk to have atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease. Inflammation plays a crucial role in the atherosclerosis process. Some studies, even few, have shown the relationship between high levels of ferritin, with each component of the MS. Material and methods. We studied 598 patients with overweight or obesity. We evaluated: the body composition and analytical parameters: glucose, cholesterol, triglycerides, high-density cholesterol and ferritin. Insulin resistance (IR) was defined by HOMA method. ATP III criteria were used to define MS. Results. Higher levels of triglycerides have significant more elevated levels of ferritin (124.6 ng/ml versus 65.0 ng/ml; p = .001) or glucose (105.9 ng/ml versus 78.6 ng/ml; p = .023). The number of components of the MS increases with the values of ferritin. Patients with IR have higher values of ferritin (119.27 ng/ml versus 79.05 ng/ml; p = .001), with an area under the ROC curve of 0.678. Conclusions. An Inflammatory parameter as ferritin could be useful and a precocious marker to evaluate chronic subclinic inflammatory process in daily medical practice.