Are elevated circulating intercellular adhesion molecule 1 levels more strongly predictive of diabetes than vascular risk? Outcome of a prospective study in the elderly.
Diabetologia 2008 ; 52: 235-9.
Sattar N, Murray HM, Welsh P, Blauw GJ, Buckley BM, de Craen AJ, Ford I, Forouhi NG, Freeman DJ, Jukema JW, Macfarlane PW, Murphy MB, Packard CJ, Stott DJ, Westendorp RG, Shepherd J
DOI : 10.1007/s00125-008-1217-3
PubMed ID : 19030842
PMCID : 0
Abstract
The aim of this prospective study was to determine whether circulating intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM) 1, as a potential surrogate of 'endothelial activation', is more strongly associated with risk of vascular events than with incident diabetes.
We related baseline ICAM-1 levels to vascular events (866 CHD and stroke events in 5,685 participants) and incident diabetes (292 in 4,945 without baseline diabetes) in the elderly over 3.2 years of follow-up.
ICAM-1 levels correlated positively with triacylglycerol but negatively with LDL- and HDL-cholesterol. ICAM-1 levels were higher in those who developed diabetes (388.6 +/- 1.42 vs 369.4 +/- 1.39 ng/ml [mean+/-SD], p = 0.011) and remained independently associated with new-onset diabetes (HR 1.84, 95% CI 1.26-2.69, p = 0.0015 per unit increase in log[ICAM-1] after adjusting for classical risk factors and C-reactive protein). By contrast, ICAM-1 levels were not significantly (p = 0.40) elevated in those who had an incident vascular event compared with those who remained event-free, and corresponding adjusted risk associations were null (HR 0.98, 95% CI 0.80-1.22, p = 0.89) in analyses adjusted for other risk factors.
We show that elevated ICAM-1 levels are associated with risk of incident diabetes in the elderly at risk, despite no association with incident cardiovascular disease risk. We suggest that perturbations in circulating ICAM-1 levels are aligned more towards diabetes risk.