Proportional correlates of cystatin-C with pentraxin-3, visceral adiposity index and atherogenicity index of plasma but not blood indices in metabolic syndrome patients with and without prediabetes.

Background Pentraxin-3 (PXT-3) and cystatin-C (Cys-C) are robustly related with central obesity and insulin resistance in prediabetes/metabolic syndrome (preDM-MetS). Materials and methods This cross-sectional study aimed to compare and correlate PXT-3 and Cys-C plasma levels in 29 normoglycemic MetS patients, 30 newly diagnosed drug naive preDM-MetS cases vs. 29 normoglycemic lean controls. Results Unlike PXT-3; Cys-C level was significantly higher in normoglycemic MetS (but not preDM-MetS) vs. healthy controls. Except for fasting blood glucose (FBG) and HbA1c; no further intergroup discrepancy could be identified between the MetS arms. Adiposity indices [body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), hip circumference (HC), waist/height ratio (WHtR), body adiposity index (BAI) and lipid accumulation product (LAP) but not conicity index (CI)], atherogenicity index of plasma (AIP) (but not non-high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (nonHDL)-C, non-HDL-C/HDL-C ratio or total cholesterol (TC)/HDL-C ratio) or any of blood indices were substantially higher in both MetS (normoglycemic and preDM) groups vs. controls. Low density lipoprotein (LDL)-C/HDL-C ratio, visceral adiposity index (VAI) and WHR were exceptionally greater in MetS-preDM vs. controls. Marked proportional PTX-3-Cys-C correlation was noted in 59 MetS participants (normoglycemic and preDM). PTX-3 (but not Cys-C) correlated proportionally with each of neutrophils, monocyte/lymphocyte ratio and neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio but inversely with the lymphocyte count. Substantially, Cys-C (but not PXT-3) positively associated with both VAI and AIP but inversely with HDL-C. Neither biomarker in MetS pool had relations with red blood cell distribution width-coefficient of variation (RDW-CV%), BMI, WC, HC, CI, WHR, WHtR, BAI, LAP, non-HDL-C, ratios of non-HDL-C/HDL-C, LDL-C/HDL-C or TC/HDL-C. Conclusion PXT-3 and Cys-C can be surrogate prognostic/diagnostic biomarkers or putative MetS therapy targets.