Association of Dietary Total Antioxidant Capacity and MC4R Polymorphisms in Metabolically Healthy and Unhealthy Overweight/Obese Women

Abstract

Background: 3-15% of people with obesity display a metabolically healthy phenotype. An inflammatory diet impairs metabolic signaling pathways and eliciting metabolic syndrome. The main purpose of this study was to investigate how the Dietary Total Antioxidant Capacity (DTAC) and the MC4R variants affect the metabolic health status in overweight and obese Iranian women.Methods and results: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 237 overweight-obese Tehrani women with mean age of 36 years.The DTAC was calculated using the following indices: total reactive antioxidant potential (TRAP), Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC), and the ferric-reducing ability of plasma (FRAP). The Metabolic health was evaluated using the Karelis criteria. The MC4R genotypes were determined by the restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method. Approximately 43% of participants were identified as Metabolically Unhealthy Obesity (MUO), 6% Metabolically Healthy Obesity (MHO) including 42.5% of the total had T/T genotype ,23.8% had the C/T genotype, and 33.5% had the C/C genotype (P=0.05). In the C/C genotype people 75% were unhealthy whereas it was lower in T/T and T/C genotype people. Further, The C/C genotype with higher DTAC quartile had higher Karlis score than other DTAC quartile. A liner model test supported that the probability of MHO was significantly higher in subjects with the T/C genotype (β=-0.001, 95% CI= -0.001-4.796; P ≤ 0.1). Conclusions: Our results indicated that the C/C genotype with higher DTAC had favorable lipid profile and were metabolically healthier. It is plausible that dietary modification targeting antioxidant intake may attenuate metabolic impairments associated with genetic predisposition.