Leptin as a possible link between obesity, hypertension and insulin resistance in Egyptian females

Leptin is a peptide expressed and secreted from adipocytes. It serves an adipostat function that regulates fat mass by decreasing food intake and increasing energy expenditure or thermogenesis. Leptin is found to be related to obesity, hypertension and insulin resistance in some studies. Our aim was to investigate leptin as a possible link between obesity, hypertension and insulin resistance in Egyptian females. Eighty adult females were recruited, blood pressure and body measures were recorded and a fasting blood sample was obtained for the quantitation of glucose, lipid profile, insulin and leptin. Running several statistical analyses, we found that leptin was significantly elevated (all at p˂0.001) in case of insulin resistance and obesity when classified upon body mass index, waist circumference or waist/height ratio but not upon waist/hip ratio nor conicity index. On the other hand, hypertension and metabolic syndrome did not show leptin variation in cases than in controls.