Table 1.
Age, adiposity indices, fasting and after oral glucose biochemical and hormonal data, and insulin secretion and action indices (mean±SE) in obese patients and healthy control women.
Fig 1.
Mean±SE plasma glucose (a; mg/dL), insulin (b; μU/mL) GH (c; μg/L) and total ghrelin levels (d; pg/mL) in normal (grey) and obese women (black) during the prolongued oral glucose tolerance test.
* p<0.05 between normal and obese women at that time point. Insulin was higher in the obese women than in the healthy control women after the 300 min OG (Fig. 1b). GH was lower in the the obese women than in the healthy control women after OG (Fig. 1c). The AUC of GH (μg/L·min) between 0 and 300 min was lower in the obese patients than in the controls; 249.8±41.8 vs 490.4±74.6, P = 0.001, for the obese patients and controls respectively. Peak GH (μg/L) levels were lower in the obese than in the healthy women, 3.3±0.5 vs 6.6±0.8 p<0.001, for the obese and healthy women respectively. Total ghrelin was lower in the obese women than in the healthy women after OG (Fig. 1d). The AUC of total ghrelin (pg/mL·min) between 0 and 300 min was lower in the obese patients than in the controls; 240995.5±11094.2 vs 340797.5±37757.5, P = 0.042, for the obese and healthy women respectively (Fig. 2).
Fig 2.
Mean±SE plasma GH AUC0–300 (pg/mL·min) and Ghrelin AUC0–300 (pg/mL·min) in normal (grey) and obese women (black) during the prolongued oral glucose tolerance test.
* p<0.05 between normal and obese women.
Table 2.
Correlations between GH secretion indices (Peak: μg/L and AUC: μg/L·min) and the different adiposity indices, insulin secretion indices, insulin action indices and ghrelin (Nadir: pg/mL and AUC: pg/mL·min) secretion in the entire group of healthy and obese women.
Fig 3.
Relationship between GH secretion indices (log-transformed) and IGF-I, waist circumference, Matsuda index and Ghrelin AUC0–300 data.
Univariate generalized additive regression (GAM) models. A clear linear association between ghrelin AUC and the different indices of GH secretion (log-transformed) was found (Fig. 3).
Table 3.
Generalized additive regression (GAM) model for GH secretion indices (log-transformed).