ABSTRACT
We hypothesized that there would be strong association between insulin level and leptin level, and attempted to examine factors affecting plasma leptin level among the homogeneous Type 2 diabetes subjects. The study was conducted from July 2005 through September 2005 in the Taipei Hospital, Taiwan. From 1356 registered diabetes patients, 120 subjects who met the criteria of [1] aged between 20 and 75 years, [2] being Chinese, [3] having Type 2 diabetes for more than one year, [4] having been taking gliclazide and metformin for more than 6 months, were enrolled for this study. Factors affecting plasma leptin level are determined using multiple linear regression analysis. The coefficients obtained by multiple regression analysis with stepwise method showed that gender [beta=-0.49, p < 0.001], insulin level [beta=0.46, p < 0.001] and body mass index [BMI][beta=0.21, p=0.003] were the main predictors of leptin concentrations for all type 2 diabetic subjects; insulin level [beta=0.50, p < 0.001], BMI [beta=0.42, p < 0.001] and triglyceride [beta=0.17, p=0.03] were the main predictors for type 2 diabetic men; and insulin level [beta=0.68, p < 0.001] was the only predictor for type 2 diabetic women. These initial findings seem to indicate that insulin concentration is the main predictor of leptin level in both male and female type 2 diabetes subjects