Meal‐Induced Pro‐Inflammatory Responses in Guatemalan Adults Are Associated with Body Mass Index And Are More Pronounced in Women
Authors: He Siran , Le Ngoc‐Anh , Stein Aryeh D. 
Published: June 2021

Background

Populations in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs) often experience a combination of undernutrition in childhood and an obesogenic environment in adulthood. Research to address their emerging cardiometabolic disease is sparse, especially their response to stressors such as a meal challenge.

Objective

Our objective was to describe pro‐inflammatory changes in response to a standardized meal challenge.

Methods

Participants are from a longitudinal cohort study established in 1969 in Guatemala. In 2015–17 (n=1131), mean age 45 y (range 37–54 y), pre‐ and two‐hour post‐meal challenge (600kcal standardized mixed meal, 30% fat, 50% carbohydrates, and 20% protein) plasma samples were obtained. Measurements included lipid profile, glucose (GLU), insulin (INS), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), and pro‐ and anti‐inflammation cytokines, including interleukin‐6 and 10 (IL‐6, IL‐10), adiponectin, leptin, soluble TNF receptor II (TNFsR), and resistin. Data from an initial random subset (n=119, 58% women) is presented. The impact of the meal challenge was assessed as percent changes (denoted as %D), which were related to body mass index (BMI) values. Analyses were stratified by sex.

Results

Mean (SD) BMI was 29.4 (5.3) for women and 27.0 (4.1) for men. Women had higher fasting HDL‐cholesterol, apoA‐I, insulin, hsCRP, adiponectin, leptin, and resistin levels than men (all p<0.05). While most biomarkers were within the ‘normal’ fasting range as observed in U.S. and other published reference populations, mean triglyceride (TG), glucose and non‐esterified fatty acids (NEFA) were higher for both genders. Mean hsCRP was high among women and not in men; and mean ALT was high among men.

Meal‐induced changes were associated with BMI, and differed by sex. %D‐GLU (mean change 20.4% vs. 5.9%, p<0.001) and %D‐INS (297% vs. 210%, p<0.015) was higher in women than men. %D‐GLU increased with BMI for both genders, while %D‐INS increased with BMI only in women. %D‐leptin (−17.8% women; −35.4% men) and %D‐TNFsR (‐19.3% women; −11.3% men) were negative. The association between %D‐leptin with BMI was positive in women and negative in men (p<0.001 for heterogeneity by sex). %D‐TNFsR was inversely associated with BMI in women and positively associated in men (p< 0.03 by sex).

Discussion

In this sample, meal‐induced pro‐inflammatory responses were associated with BMI. The changes in key biomarkers, especially in TNFsR, suggest that women tend to have greater meal‐induced pro‐inflammatory responses than men. The gender‐dependent difference in postprandial leptin suggests a more complex role of leptin than a simple pro‐inflammatory marker. These results warrant further investigation.

Conclusion

Meal‐induced pro‐inflammatory responses were associated with BMI, and differed between men and women in this study.

Support or Funding Information

This work is supported by the National Institute of Health, USA (Grant Number: 5R01HD075784).

This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.