Associations between self-reported diabetes and 78 circulating markers of inflammation, immunity, and metabolism among adults in the United States

Inflammation is increasingly thought to be associated with diabetes; however, only a few inflammation markers have been assessed concurrently in relation to history of diabetes. In the most comprehensive evaluation of inflammation markers and diabetes to date using a Luminex bead-based assay, we measured 78 inflammation-, immune-, and metabolic-related markers detectable in at least 10% of serum samples collected from participants from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer (PLCO) screening trial (n = 1,814). At baseline, 6.6% (n = 120) of PLCO participants self-reported a history of diabetes. Cross-sectional associations between these markers and self-reported diabetes were assessed using weighted logistic regression adjusting for sex, smoking status, blood draw age and year, body mass index, and cohort sub-study. Including chemokines [C-C motif ligand (CCL) 19, CCL20, CCL21, C-X-C motif ligand (CXCL) 6, CXCL10, and CXCL11] and soluble cytokine and chemokine receptors [soluble (s) interleukin (IL) 6 receptor (R), soluble tumor necrosis factor receptor (sTNFR) 1, sTNFR2, and sIL-R2], ten inflammation-related markers, were nominally associated with diabetes (P<0.05). In addition to these associations, higher levels of insulin, gastric inhibitory polypeptide, and pancreatic polypeptide remained significantly associated with self-reported diabetes with a false discovery rate <5%, indicating that the assay was able to detect markers associated with diabetes. In summary, self-reported diabetes was nominally associated with circulating cytokines, chemokines, and soluble cytokine and chemokine receptors in the most expansive examination of diabetes and inflammation- and immune-related markers to date. These results highlight the need to explore in future prospective studies the role of inflammation markers in diabetes.