Evaluation of spexin level in obese patients

Kaymaz.Ö. Evaluation of Spexin Level in Obese Patients, Tekirdag Namık Kemal University, Institute of Health Sciences, Department of Medical Biochemistry, Master Thesis, Tekirdag, 2020. Obesity is a multifactorial complex disease that negatively affects our health and it also causes many health problems such as diabetes, hypertension (HT), hyperlipidemia and cardiovascular diseases. Our aim in this research is to evaluate the relationship between spexin levels, a recently discovered peptide, with obesity and associated disorders. 58 obese patients and 30 healthy individuals were included in our study. There was no significant difference in serum spexin levels in obese patients compared to the control group (p = 0.37). Also, in the morbidly obese group, serum spexin levels were significantly lower than the overweight patient group (p = 0.041). Among the parameters examined in obese patients, total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein (LDL), high density lipoprotein (HDL) and triglyceride, glucose, insulin, HbA1c, QUICKY index, systolic blood pressure (SKP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and body mass index (BMI) values were significantly higher than the control group (p=0.001, p=0.002, p=0.021, p=0.000, p=0.000, p=0.000, p=0.000, p=0.000, p=0.000, p=0.000, p=0.000 respectively). Serum spexin values in the patient group with metabolic syndrome (MS) were significantly higher than the control group (p = 0.045). In the correlation analysis applied to the obese patient group, a negative correlation was found between serum spexin levels and SBP, BMI (r = -0.263 p <0.05, r = -0.259 p <0.05, respectively). In MS group, negative correlation was found between serum spexin levels and triglyceride, HbA1c and age (r = -0,351 p <0.05, r = -0,304 p <0.05, r = -0.316 p <0.05, respectively). At the same time, patients with hypertension had significantly lower serum spexin levels than the control group (p = 0.032). In conclusion, it shows that the decrease in serum spexin levels may be a potential biomarker in morbidly obese patients and in the evaluation of metabolic syndrome.