Associations Between Serum Resistin Levels and Insulin Resistance, Inflammation, and Coronary Artery Disease

Patients with one-vessel, two-vessel, and three-vessel disease more often showed a resistin level of >6.0 ng/ml than those without CAD (25%, 29%, and 39% vs. 5%; p < 0.01). [...]resistin levels correlated with the numbers of >50% stenotic segments (r = 0.20) and >25% stenotic segments (r = 0.21) (p < 0.005 by Spearman's rank correlation). Because insulin resistance became recognized to be associated with atherosclerotic disease and because atherosclerosis is recognized as a chronic inflammatory disease, resistin may play some role in linking insulin resistance and inflammation to CAD.