Exp Clin Endocrinol Diabetes 2014; 122 - P161
DOI: 10.1055/s-0034-1372178

Advanced glycation endproducts in plasma of women without and with impaired glucose metabolism: Results from the SALIA-study

T Teichert 1, A Hellwig 2, A Peßler 2, M Hellwig 2, M Vossoughi 3, D Sugiri 3, A Vierkötter 3, T Schulte 4, M Roden 1, 5, 6, B Hoffmann 3, T Schikowski 3, 7, 8, C Luckhaus 3, U Krämer 3, T Henle 2, C Herder 1, 6
  • 1German Diabetes Center, Institute for Clinical Diabetology, Duesseldorf, Germany
  • 2Technical University Dresden, Institute of Food Chemistry, Dresden, Germany
  • 3IUF – Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine, Duesseldorf, Germany
  • 4Heinrich Heine University, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Duesseldorf, Germany
  • 5University Hospital Duesseldorf, Department of Endocrinology and Diabetology, Duesseldorf, Germany
  • 6German Center for Diabetes Research, Duesseldorf, Germany
  • 7Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Basel, Switzerland
  • 8University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

Advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) are hypothesized to contribute to the development of type 2 diabetes and related complications. Previous studies used antibody-based methods to quantify circulating levels of glycated proteins. However, data based on more precise and more specific liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS)-based measurements of these glucose-amino acid adducts are rare and limited to subjects with known diabetes. Thus we aimed to compare plasma AGE levels of individuals with and without impaired glucose metabolism (IGM) and to correlate AGE levels with fasting glucose, fasting insulin and the HOMA-IR index as a surrogate marker of insulin resistance.

We used data from 60 randomly selected non-smoking and non-diabetic women with and without IGM (n = 30 for each group) from the German SALIA cohort. IGM was defined as fasting glucose levels ≥100 mg/dL. We measured plasma levels of the AGEs MGH and 3-DGH (methylglyoxal/3-deoxyglucosone derived hydro-imidazolone), CML and CEL (carboxymethyl-/carboxyethyllysine) and MetSO (methionine sulfoxide) using LC-MS/MS.

The mean age of the study participants was 74 years (P > 0.05 for group differences). Women with IGM had a higher body mass index (BMI) than women without IGM (30.3 ± 4.2 vs. 26.0 ± 4.0 kg/m2, P < 0.001). Both groups had similar plasma concentrations of MGH, 3-DGH, CML, CEL and MetSO (P > 0.05 for each AGE after adjustment for age, BMI, education, former smoking and passive smoking). Plasma AGEs did not correlate with fasting glucose, insulin or HOMA-IR across the whole study population (r between -0.2 and 0.2, P > 0.05).

In conclusion, plasma AGEs as assessed by LC-MS/MS did not associate with measures of glucose metabolism in a selected group of elderly women. Thus, further studies are required to better understand the discrepancies of these results with published data using antibody-based AGE detection methods.