ABSTRACT
Oxytocin [OXT] is implicated as a novel therapy of obesity-diabetes. Nesfatin is an anorexigenic adipokine linked to improve insulin sensitivity and dysglycemia in obese/T2DM mice, while endothelin-1 [ET-1] is an endothelium vasoconstrictor that is dysregulated in metabolic insulin resistance. The aim of this study was to investigate OXT, ET-1, and nesfatin plasma levels and the correlation between these biomarkers and the various metabolic parameters in the human. In a cross-sectional study, MS-subjects attended the National Center for Diabetes Endocrinology and Genetics were enrolled based on their blood glucose levels into [82 MS-non-diabetic vs. 89 MS-pre/diabetic patients]. Plasma OXT, ET-1 and nesfatin levels were measured by competitive binding and sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays [ELISA]. When MS-pre/T2DM patients were compared to MS-controls, plasma OXT concentrations [pg/mL] were significantly lower [P < 0.001] [mean +/- SD; 1206.28 +/- 507.68 vs. 2224 +/- 871.22]; nesfatin plasma levels [ng/mL] were significantly higher [P < 0.01] [1.04 +/- 2.20 vs. 0.31 +/- 0.25]; while no differences were observed in ET-1 [pg/mL] plasma levels [P > 0.05] [4.21 +/- 4.19 vs. 4.01 +/- 3.51]. In conclusion, the present study is the first one which demonstrates an increase in nesfatin concentrations in MS-pre/diabetic patients vs. MS-non-diabetic. Our study reported a decrease in OXT levels in MS-pre/T2DM compared to MS-control. Besides, ET-1 concentrations had no significant difference between non-diabetic and diabetic-MS patients, serum OXT concentrations correlated with several clinical parameters; this is suggestive of OXT as a pharmacologic agent that opposes weight gain and improves insulin resistance