Peripheral differential leukocyte counts in humans vary with hyperlipidemia, smoking, and body mass index

Abstract

Reports of diverse relationships between blood concentrations of different lipids and peripheral total leukocyte count, and a unique lower peripheral monocyte count in hypercholesterolemia, have driven us to think that in humans, peripheral differential leukocyte counts may be influenced differently by different types of hyperlipidemia. Our subjects were Taipei residents who attended a regular health check program in our hospital in 1998. A total of 3,282 subjects was enrolled, including 1,677 normolipidemic, 960 untreated borderline hyperlipidemic, and 645 untreated hyperlipidemic subjects. By one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), we found that different types of hyperlipidemia were associated with significant differences in differential leukocyte counts. In hypertriglyceridemia, the total leukocyte count and counts of all leukocyte subtypes were significantly higher than those in normolipidemia. Pure hypercholesterolemia, by contrast, was associated with a significantly lower monocyte count and no significant difference in other leukocyte counts. By two-way ANOVA adjusted for presence and degree of hyperlipidemia, we found significantly higher counts of total leukocytes and of all leukocyte subtypes in smokers, and significantly positive trends in relationships between body mass index (BMI) and counts of all leukocytes, neutrophils, lymphocytes, and monocytes. By multivariate regression analysis including all subjects, the serum triglyceride (TG) level was positively correlated with total leukocyte count and counts of all subtypes except eosinophils. On the contrary, serum high density lipoprotein-cholesterol had a negative correlation with total leukocyte count and with counts of neutrophils, monocytes, and basophils. In these multivariate regression analyses, there was no significant correlation between lipid levels and eosinophil count, whereas smoking was consistently associated with significantly higher counts of all leukocyte subtypes, including eosinophils. BMI had a significantly positive correlation with counts of all leukocytes, neutrophils, lymphocytes, and monocytes.

Association of White Blood Cell Count and Clustered Components of Metabolic Syndrome in Japanese Men

“…Unlike other studies, we adjusted not only for age, smoking and drinking status, but also for a previous medical history of a disease associated with low-grade inflammation. Previous studies have mainly focused on associations between the WBC count and a single metabolic disorder such as diabetes, 26 hypertension 27,28 or hyperlipidemia, 29 but it may also be associated with several of these disorders, so we investigated possible associations between the WBC count and clusters of the 5 components of MS as defined in ATP III. We found that the average WBC count became significantly higher as the number of MS components increased, which suggests that subjects with a single MS component have low-grade inflammation, which intensifies as the number of MS components increases.…”

Leukocyte Activation by Triglyceride-Rich Lipoproteins

“…1 Leukocyte count is positively related to CVD incidence and mortality 2 as well as to traditional cardiovascular risk factors, such as smoking, hyperlipidemia, and insulin resistance. 3,4 Triglycerides (TG) and glucose are able to induce leukocyte activation, as has been shown in vitro 5,6 and ex vivo in hypertriglyceridemic patients. 7 Neutrophil counts increase postprandially in healthy subjects, in CVD patients and in type 2 diabetics when TG and glucose rise.…”

Critical roles for CCR2 and MCP-3 in monocyte mobilization from bone marrow and recruitment to inflammatory sites

“…To determine whether monocyte mobilization in response to inflammatory insults also requires CCR2, we fed the mice a high-fat, high-cholesterol diet for 3.5 weeks to induce hypercholesterolemia, which leads to reproducible monocyte/ macrophage accumulation in blood vessel walls and inflammation (23,24). Others have reported an increase in the blood monocyte count in both mice (25) and humans (26) in response to chronic consumption of a high-fat diet. We found monocytosis in the 7/4 bri and 7/4 dim populations in WT mice, but not in the CCR2 -/-mice.…”