Relationship between true fasting plasma insulin level and angiographic characteristics of coronary atherosclerosis.
BACKGROUND
Reports about the relationships between specific insulin concentration and coronary heart disease risk are controversial.


OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study was to examine the association between insulin level and the severity of coronary atherosclerosis.


METHODS
The study population consisted of 507 consecutive patients (376 men and 131 women) who underwent coronary angiography for suspected or known coronary atherosclerosis. The patients' habits of smoking and drinking were investigated, and anthropometric measurements including body mass index, systolic and diastolic blood pressures, as well as plasma measurements including lipids and blood glucose were taken. The true insulin level was measured using a highly sensitive two-site sandwich ELISA. The severity of coronary atherosclerosis was defined by the Gensini score system. The statistical methods including Kruskal-Wallis test, chi-square analysis, Spearman correlation analysis, and multivariate stepwise linear regression analysis were employed to explore the relationship between specific insulin level and coronary atherosclerosis.


RESULTS
When the Gensini score was examined as a categorical variable classified by tertile values, subjects with a high Gensini score had significantly higher values of fasting plasma specific insulin level (p = 0.022). The Spearman correlation analysis suggest that the Gensini score correlated significantly with true insulin (mIU/l) (r = 0.095, p = 0.033). However, the results from the multivariate stepwise linear regression analysis show that the association between specific insulin level and severity of coronary atherosclerosis lost its significance.


CONCLUSIONS
The level of plasma fasting specific insulin was associated significantly with the severity of coronary atherosclerosis, as measured by Gensini score, but hyperinsulinemia showed no association with the severity of coronary atherosclerosis in multivariate analyses.
Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China. enzhijia@yahoo.com.cn
En-Zhi
EZ
Jia
Zhi-Jian
ZJ
Yang
Biao
B
Yuan
Xiao-Ling
XL
Zang
Rong-Hu
RH
Wang
Tie-Bing
TB
Zhu
Lian-Sheng
LS
Wang
B O
BO
Chen
Ke-Jiang
KJ
Cao
Jun
J
Huang
Wen-Zhu
WZ
Ma
D000368:Aged; D000886:Anthropometry; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D017023:Coronary Angiography; D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000097:blood* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D005215:Fasting; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007328:Insulin / Q000097:blood*; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012307:Risk Factors; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric
D007328:Insulin