Association Between Serum Levels of Adropin and Insulin Resistance in Patients with Beta-Thalassemia Major

Background: Beta-thalassemia is among the most common groups of recessively inherited disorders worldwide of hemoglobin production which produce by the reduction or absence of the globin chain. Adropin is a protein that plays an important role in metabolic and energy hemostasis and insulin resistance. to examinate the serum level of serum adropin in patients with β-thalassemia major and evaluate of correlation between adropin with insulin resistance and other clinical biomarkers. Materials and Methods: hundred and twenty patients with β-thalassemia major and sixty healthy control groups were involved in the present study. The patients were classified into males (n = 55) and females (n = 65), whereas control groups were divided into two subgroups, males (n = 29) and females (n = 55). Serum adropin level, BMI, CRP, ferritin, glucose, insulin, HOMA-IR, HOMA-β, iron, TIBC, UBIC, TS and transferrin for both patient and control groups were estimated. Results: Serum adropin, HOMA-β, TIBC, UIBC and transferrin demonstrated a significant decrease in patients with β-thalassemia major as compared with healthy individuals (0.72 ± 0.24 vs.1.23 ± 0.25, P<0.001), (3.86 ± 1.72 vs. 6.56 ± 2.42, P<0.001), (55.01 ± 5.85 vs 68.15 ± 12.26, P<0.001), (21.02 ± 7.22 vs 44.15 ± 12.29, P<0.001) and (39 ± 4.13, 48.32 ± 8.69, P<0.001) respectively, whereas BMI, CRP, ferritin, glucose, insulin, HOMA-IR, iron and TS exhibited significant higher value than control groups. The correlation between serum adropin demonstrated a significantly negative correlation with age (r = -0.807), BMI (r = -0.421), CRP (r = -0.197), ferritin (r = -0.504), serum glucose (r = -0.635), insulin (r = -0.418), HOMA-IR (r = -0.551), iron (r = -0.571) and TS (r = -0.605), while revealed a significantly positive correlation with HOMA-β (r = 0.364), TBIC (r = 0.296), UIBC (r = 0.553) and transferrin (r = 0.266).Conclusion: The present study showed that the serum level of adropin in patients with β-thalassemia major was significantly lower than in control groups. These findings suggest that adropin may be a potential biomarker for predicting the risk of complications since the decreasing of serum adropin might play an important role in the development of diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular diseases, kidney dysfunction, rheumatoid arthritis, and inflammatory bowel diseases in these patients.