HIGHER LEVELS OF UNCONJUGATED BILIRUBIN ARE ASSOCIATED WITH A LESS ATHEROGENIC LIPID PROFILE IN PATIENTS WITH TYPE 2 DIABETES MELLITUS

MARTÍN, PAMELA; PÉREZ GOIRI, CAROLINA; PACUSSE, ALBERTO; EVANGELISTA, RUBÉN; PELUSA, HÉCTOR F; ARRIAGA, SANDRA M; BASIGLIO, CECILIA L

Rosario

Congreso; XXII Congreso y XL Reunión Anual de la Sociedad de Biología de Rosario. "Zoonosis y Enfermedades Emergentes"; 2020

Sociedad de Biología de Rosario

Bilirubin is an endogenous bile pigment generated in the mononuclear phagocytic system, from the degradation of heme group, through the sequential action of hemeoxygenase and biliverdin reductase enzymes. Historically, it has been considered not only a waste product, but also a potentially toxic compound. However, bilirubin is currently regarded as a potent endogenous antioxidant with cytoprotective properties, both in vitro and in vivo. It has been demonstrated that unconjugated bilirubin (UB) bears a higher antioxidant potency than conjugated bilirubin, due to a system of conjugated double bonds that confers the ability to donate hydrogen atoms to a radical species. Dyslipidemia (DLP) is highly prevalent in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) and the characteristic pattern of DM2 DLP includes elevated levels of total cholesterol (TC) and triglycerides (TG), low levels of HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C) and, eventually, elevated levels of LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C), thus constituting a clearly atherogenic profile. Recent studies have demonstrated a direct association between elevated levels of UB and a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, arterial hypertension, chronic kidney disease and death in subjects with Gilbert syndrome, a genetic condition of mild and transient unconjugated hyperbilirubinemia. In this study we proposed to evaluate the lipid profile in patients with DM2 as a function of their plasma levels of UB. For this, samples of 24 individuals with DM2 (who had previously signed the informed consent) were processed, 62% female and 38% male, aged [median (range)]: 71 (55-88) years old. These patients were divided into 2 groups, according to their levels of UB: high UB: when UB >0.5 mg/dL (n=10) and low UB: when UB ≤0.5 mg/dL (n=14). All biochemical parameters analyzed were assessed by means of a Cobas c311 autoanalizer (Roche, Argentina). The obtained results [median (range); mg/dL] for high UB vs low UB were, respectively: TC: 159 (120-209) vs 202 (139-308); LDL-C: 88 (51-142) vs 130 (51-203); TG: 93 (65-135) vs 121 (101-291); HDL-C: 57 (50-75) vs 50 (41-60). All the parameters of the lipid profile showed significant differences between both groups (p