Endocrinology & Metabolic Syndrome
Open Access
ISSN: 2161-1017
ISSN: 2161-1017
Syed M. Shahid, Maha Irfan, Tabassum Mahboob
Faculty of Medical & Health Sciences, University of Auckland, New Zealand, KIBGE, University of Karachi, Karachi, Pakistan, Department of Biochemistry, University of Karachi, Karachi, Pakistan
Scientific Tracks Abstracts: Endocrinol Metab Syndr
The adipose tissues along with their lipid storage property are also considered as an endocrine organ producing hormones and cytokines, known as adipokines. These adipokines play pivotal role in many physiological functions in the body along with lipid metabolism. Visfatin/NAMPT/PBEF was recently described as an adipokine with potentially important effects in obesity, metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease. Visfatin has a molecular weight of 52 KDa and comprised of 491 amino acid residues and transcribed by visfatin gene. It is identical to the pre-B-cell colony-enhancing factor (PBEF) that was described as lymphocytes producing cytokine. In this study visfatin gene polymorphism and risk of cardiovascular diseases in obese subjects was assessed. This study was performed in 50 obese subjects and 50 normal individuals. Biochemical parameters such as serum cholesterol, triglyceride, LDL, HDL, blood glucose, urea, creatinine levels were measured. Similarly the anthropometric data such as gender, age, BMI, systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) of subjects was also collected. These parameters were found to be significantly different in two groups (p<0.05). We also found significant variation in visfatin gene G948T among obese and normal subjects (p<0.05). The results show that obesity may be associated with increased visfatin gene expression in this experimental setup.
Syed M. Shahid has PhD in Health Biochemsitry from University of Karachi, Pakistan. He has recently worked as Postdoctoral Researcher at FMHS, University of Auckland and has more than 10 years of health science teaching and research experience. Dr. Shahid is currently working as Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader, Health Services Management in NTEC, Aspire2 International, Auckland, New Zealand. He has published more than 45 research papers in the field of health and disease in journals of international repurte. He has presented his research work in more than 60 international conferences, symposia and seminars. (Up to 100 words)