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ORIGINAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATION |
1 From the Québec Heart Institute, Hôpital Laval Research Centre, Hôpital Laval, Québec, Canada (AC, MC, IL, and J-PD); the Department of Anatomy and Physiology, Université Laval, Québec, Canada (AC and MC); the Division of Kinesiology, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Université Laval, Québec, Canada (LP, AT, and J-PD); and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, LA (CB).
2 The Québec Family Study was supported by multiple grants from the Medical Research Council of Canada (now the Canadian Institutes of Health Research) and by the Canadian Diabetes Association. J-PD is the Scientific Director of the International Chair on Cardiometabolic Risk, which is supported by an unrestricted grant awarded to Université Laval by Sanofi Aventis. CB was supported in part by the George A Bray Chair in Nutrition. AT was supported in part by the Canada Research Chair in Physical Activity, Nutrition and Energy Balance. AC was a recipient of a scholarship from the Merck Frosst/CIHR Research Chair in Obesity. 3 Reprints not available. Address correspondence to J-P Després, Québec Heart Institute, Hôpital Laval Research Centre, 2725 Chemin Ste-Foy, Pavilion Marguerite-D'Youville, 4th Floor, Québec QC G1V 4G5, Canada. E-mail: jean-pierre.despres{at}crhl.ulaval.ca.
Background: C-reactive protein (CRP) concentrations have been found to be higher in premenopausal women than in men, whereas interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-
(TNF-) concentrations have been reported to be lower in women than in men.
Objective: The objective was to determine whether the sex difference in body fat distribution accounts for the observed sex differences in inflammatory markers.
Design: Plasma CRP, IL-6, and TNF- concentrations were measured in 208 healthy men (age: 42.2 ± 15.2 y) and in 145 healthy women (age: 36.8 ± 11.1 y).
Results: Compared with men, premenopausal women had higher CRP concentrations [1.24 (25th percentile: 0.54; 75th percentile: 3.04) compared with 0.94 (0.51, 2.40) mg/L; P < 0.05] and lower plasma TNF- concentrations [1.50 (25th percentile: 1.23; 75th percentile: 1.82) compared with 1.71 (1.40, 2.05) pg/mL; P < 0.001]. No sex difference in IL-6 concentrations was noted. Regression analyses indicated that the relation between CRP or IL-6 and visceral adipose tissue (VAT) and subcutaneous AT (SAT) was sex-specific; a significantly steeper slope was observed in women than in men (P < 0.05). Sex differences in CRP concentrations were abolished after SAT was adjusted for. In a multivariate model of the whole sample, we found that both SAT and VAT and the sex x SAT interaction term were significant correlates of CRP and IL-6 concentrations. Finally, whereas CRP concentrations were largely influenced by visceral adiposity in men, subcutaneous adiposity was the key correlate of CRP in women.
Conclusion: The higher CRP concentrations found in women appear to be due to their greater accumulation of subcutaneous fat than that observed in men.
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  J. Pirkola, M. Vaarasmaki, M. Ala-Korpela, A. Bloigu, D. Canoy, A.-L. Hartikainen, M. Leinonen, S. Miettola, M. Paldanius, T. H. Tammelin, et al. Low-Grade, Systemic Inflammation in Adolescents: Association With Early-Life Factors, Gender, and Lifestyle Am. J. Epidemiol., November 16, 2009; (2009) kwp320v1. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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