The effect of central obesity on inflammation, hepcidin, and iron metabolism in young women.
Stoffel NU., El-Mallah C., Herter-Aeberli I., Bissani N., Wehbe N., Obeid O., Zimmermann MB.
BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: In overweight and obesity (OW/OB), greater total body fat predicts higher serum hepcidin (SHep) which can impair iron homeostasis and increase risk for iron deficiency (ID). However, the effect of body fat distribution on SHep and iron homeostasis is unclear. In central obesity, interleukin (IL)-6 released from visceral adipose tissue into portal blood could strongly stimulate hepatic hepcidin synthesis. Thus, our hypothesis was that higher amounts of android fat, rather than gynoid fat, would predict impaired iron metabolism in OW/OB. SUBJECTS/METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, we enrolled 117 otherwise-healthy women into two groups: normal weight; BMI