Background: The objectives of this study were to evaluate the relationships of leptin with the metabolic syndrome and to examine leptin's role in clustering of the metabolic components among Korean adolescents.
Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out in 68 male and 80 female adolescents aged 13-18 years in an urban area of South Korea. Anthropometric variables were measured and blood pressure, fasting plasma glucose, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglyceride, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and serum leptin were obtained.
Results: As more metabolic components were clustered, body mass index, body fat, waist circumference, and serum leptin levels were significantly increased. Principal components factor analysis revealed three factors in males and females that explained 70% and 65%, respectively, of the observed variance of the 10 measured variables. These were obesity-leptin-lipid factor, blood pressure factor, and glucose-cholesterol factor in males and obesity-leptin-glucose factor, blood pressure factor, and cholesterol factor in females. Leptin loaded on only one factor in both genders.
Conclusion: Leptin did not appear to have a major role linking various components of the metabolic syndrome, even though it was strongly associated with obesity indices. Gender difference of linking of leptin with glucose or lipid was observed. There seems to be more than one pathophysiological mechanism which might underlie full expression of the metabolic syndrome among Korean adolescents.