Association Between White and Red Blood Cell Counts in Peripheral Blood and Metabolic Syndrome

Yoon, Won Seog; Lee, Myeong Sook; Yu, Byeng Chul; Lee, Yong Hwan

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Several studies have demonstrated that insulin resistance or hyperinsulinemia is related to leukocyte and erythrocyte counts. The objective of this study was to identify the relationship between the components of metabolic syndrome and hematological parameters in order to study the association of insulin resistance with metabolic syndrome. METHOD: A total of 11,649 health screen examinees above 20 years old who were examined in a hospital health promotion center from January 1, 2000 to June 30, 2005 were enrolled in this study. The metabolic syndrome was defined according to both NCEP ATP III and WHO Asia-Western Pacific criteria.
RESULTS
The prevalence of the metabolic syndrome increased with age, and the mean was 21% in men and 18% in women. Leukocyte and erythrocyte count tended to increase as greater number of individual components satisfied the criteria for metabolic syndrome. When leukocyte and erythrocyte counts were divided into quartiles, the prevalence of metabolic syndrome increased as the quartiles of both leukocyte and erythrocyte counts increased. In the highest quartile of leukocyte, the odds ratio for metabolic syndrome was 2.7, which showed approximately a three fold increase compared to the lowest quartile. In the highest erythrocyte quartile the odds ratio for metabolic syndrome was 1.8, which doubled the risk of metabolic syndrome compared to the lowest quartile.
CONCLUSION
Leukocyte and erythrocyte are associated with certain components of the metabolic syndrome and thus leukocyte and erythrocyte might also be another comprising component of metabolic syndrome and be used as an indicator to identify the metabolic syndrome.