Maternal serum adiponectin levels during human pregnancy

Abstract

Objective: Pregnancy is a unique situation characterized by insulin resistance. The role of adiponectin, an insulin-sensitizing hormone, has not been completely clarified during pregnancy. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to evaluate adiponectin levels during pregnancy and postpartum. Study design:Adiponectin and leptin levels were tested in 80 pregnant women, 20 in each trimester (mean gestational age 10.5±1.9; 19.3±4.9; 39.3±0.8 weeks,) as well as 4 days postpartum.Results: Adiponectin levels during first (13.3±3.6 mg/ml), second (12.6±4.4 mg/ml) and third trimester (11.2±3.7 mg/ml) did not differ and were significantly higher than postpartum levels (8.8±2.1 mg/ml; P<0.0001, P<0.004 and P<0.02, respectively). Conclusion:Despite increased insulin resistance during pregnancy, no significant alterations in adiponectin levels were observed. This may imply that the regulation of adiponectin during gestation is altered. The elevated gestational adiponectin levels are consistent with increased 'adiponectin resistance' during pregnancy.

Alterations in circulating adiponectin levels occur rapidly after parturition

“…Before and after delivery, the HMW adiponectin subforms constitute approximately half of the circulating adiponectin; thus, the major decrease in adiponectin subforms is observed in HMW adiponectin. Longitudinal changes in adiponectins around delivery have not been described before, and even though we report only discrete changes in adiponectin levels around parturition, our findings are in agreement with previous cross-sectional observations (2,16,17), and they indicate i) a rapid adaptation of adiponectin levels after delivery and ii) alterations in the subforms towards the state known in non-pregnant women of reproductive age.…”

“…In extension of and in context with the immediate changes in maternal adiponectin levels reported here, previous works on adiponectin levels in the puerperium have reported levels lower than or comparable to third trimester levels from a few days to 6 months after delivery, even in women who had stopped breastfeeding (10,17,18,(21)(22)(23). Shortly after delivery, fasting insulin levels decline dramatically as demonstrated for this cohort also (13,23).…”

Adipocytokines in Particular Pregnancy Disorders

“…Recent study indicates that, maternal adiponectin levels negatively correlated with maternal BMI, however others failed to verify such a correlation [56][57][58][59]. The high fetal adiponectin levels may be attributed to the lack of negative feedback on adiponectin production, resulting from the lack of adipocyte hypertrophy or a different distribution of neonatal fat depots [60].…”

227: Evidence for differential regulation of the adipokine visfatin in the maternal and fetal compartments in normal spontaneous labor at term

“…Adipokines, such as adiponectin [9,58,60,62,64,75,97], resistin [77] and visfatin [65] have been implicated in metabolic adaptations to normal gestation, as well as in complications of pregnancy such as preeclampsia [3,12,13,22,27,29,35,67,68,72,78,84,88,95,98,102], SGA [39,56,103] preterm labor and others [38, 52-55, 57, 59, 61, 63, 64, 67, 76, 101].…”