Table 4.
Unadjusted comparison of sputum and serum adipokines between subjects with asthma and controls.
| Asthma (n = 44) |
Controls (n = 44) |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adipokine characteristics | Mean ± S.D. | Mean ± S.D. | p Value for raw data without transformation | p Value for data square-root transformed |
| Sputum adipokines | ||||
| Sputum total adiponectin (relative units) | 62.9 ± 17.4 | 71.3 ± 19.0 | 0.03 | 0.03 |
| Sputum HMW adiponectin (% of total) | 29.2 ± 28.8 | 32.8 ± 31.0 | 0.57 | – |
| Sputum MMW adiponectin (% of total) | 62.3 ± 32.5 | 55.5 ± 27.8 | 0.30 | – |
| Sputum LMW adiponectin (% of total) | 8.6 ± 13.7 | 10.9 ± 13.8 | 0.43 | – |
| Sputum leptin (pg/mL) | 32.4 ± 51.3 | 33.8 ± 72.5 | 0.91 | 0.89 |
| Serum adipokines | ||||
| Serum total adiponectin (ng/mL) | 4180.6 ± 2671.1 | 3987.4 ± 3106.0 | 0.76 | 0.61 |
| Serum HMW adiponectin (ng/mL) | 4426.1 ± 2742.2 | 3689.1 ± 2586.4 | 0.20 | 0.13 |
| Serum leptin (pg/mL) | 34032.8 ± 27 597.8 | 33 263.4 ± 27 874.9 | 0.90 | 0.85 |
HMW: high-molecular weight isoform; MMW: mid-molecular weight isoform; LMW: low-molecular weight isoform.Student’s t-test was used for analyzing all variables. Among asthmatics, mean serum HMW adiponectin concentrations were higher than the serum total adiponectin concentrations. This is only possible since the two measures were obtained from different assays. Between-group comparisons are however still valid. Upon comparing asthmatics with and without inhaled corticosteroids showed no significant differences between the two groups with respect to sputum or serum adipokine measures (as discussed in the Online Supplementary data).