Poster Presentation Australian Diabetes Society and the Australian Diabetes Educators Association Annual Scientific Meeting 2017

Plasma lipidomics are associated with adiposity in overweight or obese but otherwise healthy non-diabetic adults (#349)

Aya Mousa 1 , Negar Naderpoor 1 , Estifanos Baye 1 , Josphin Johnson 1 , Natalie Mellett 2 , Peter Meikle 2 , Barbora de Courten 1
  1. Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
  2. Metabolomics Laboratory, Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

BACKGROUND: Adiposity contributes to dyslipidaemia and increased risk of chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes. Novel lipidomic profiling methods are providing new insights into the pathophysiology of chronic diseases; however limited human studies have examined the association between adiposity and lipidomic profiles. We examined whether whole plasma lipidomics were related to adiposity measured by gold-standard methods, in overweight and obese, non-diabetic adults.

METHODS: In 65 overweight or obese (BMI≥25 kg/m2), non-diabetic adults (35M/19F; age=31.3±8.5), we examined the associations between 459 lipid species across 26 lipid classes (liquid-chromatography mass-spectrometry) and adiposity (gold-standard dual X-ray absorptiometry). Additional obesity indices including BMI and waist-to-hip-ratio (WHR) were also measured. Multivariable regression was performed with adjustment for age and sex, and all analyses were adjusted for multiple testing using Benjamini-Hochberg correction.

RESULTS: Mean BMI of participants was 31.5±5.2 kg/m2 and mean % body fat was 40.1±8.7%. On univariable analyses, BMI and WHR were not associated with lipid species or classes (all p>0.05 after Benjamini-Hochberg correction). However, higher % body fat was associated with lower levels of nine lipid classes including diacylglycerols (DG) (r=-1555.1, p=0.02), triacylglycerols (TG) (r=-8747.9, p=0.03), ceramides (Cer) (r=-122.4, p=0.002), lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC) (r=-2907.1, p=0.004), alkyllysophosphatidylethanolamines (LPEp) (r=-85.5, p=0.04), phosphatidylcholines (PC) (r=-9629.1, p=0.03), alkylphosphatidylethanolamine (PEp) (r=-956.9, p=0.01), GM3 ganglioside (GM3) (r=-49.3, p=0.002), and monohexosylceramide (MHC) (r=-43.7, p=0.003). After adjustment for age and sex, % body fat remained negatively associated with the PEp and PC lipid classes (p=0.02 and p=0.049, respectively), as well as 6 individual species from the LPC lipid class (all p<0.05) and 1 from the LPE lipid class (all p=0.04).

CONCLUSION: Our novel data from a well-characterized cohort of overweight or obese but otherwise healthy non-diabetic adults suggest that increased body fat is associated with lower concentrations of several lipid species and classes. Further large-scale studies are needed to confirm this finding.