Explore the groundbreaking study on how sex differences impact cytokines and adipokines in obese patients with Psoriatic Arthritis (PsA) during a weight loss intervention, shedding light on personalized treatment approaches.
– by Marv
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Sex differences in cytokines and adipokines in obese patients with PsA and controls undergoing a weight loss intervention.
Landgren et al., RMD Open 2024
<!– DOI: 10.1136/rmdopen-2023-003821 //–>
https://doi.org/10.1136/rmdopen-2023-003821
Oh, what a joy! Another post hoc analysis where researchers, having already played with their data, decide to take another whirl and see what else might pop up. This time, they’ve set their sights on the thrilling world of cytokines and adipokines in the ever-so-patient patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) – because, why not? After all, who doesn’t love a good dive into the inflammatory soup of the human body?
So, here we have a group of 41 PsA patients, who, bless their hearts, agreed to go on a very low energy diet (VLED) – because, apparently, being on a diet that makes you dream of food is a great way to spend 12 or 16 weeks, depending on how much you tipped the scales at baseline. And, for the sake of science, we’ve got 39 control subjects, matched for sex, age, and weight, because nothing says ‘control group’ like making sure everyone is equally miserable on a VLED.
At the starting line, the researchers found that women with PsA were hoarding more interleukin (IL)-23, leptin, and high molecular weight-adiponectin than men. Meanwhile, men were keeping their levels of interferon (IFN)-γ, IL-12/IL-23 p40, and IL-13 on the down-low compared to women. Fast forward 6 months, and voilà, IL-23 levels in women decided to take a dive, but men, in a display of stubbornness, refused to let their IL-23 levels budge.
But wait, there’s more! In women, the decrease in IL-23 was like a social butterfly, positively mingling with changes in Disease Activity Score, CRP, and leptin, while giving the cold shoulder to total-adiponectin. And just when you thought the party couldn’t get any wilder, changes in Disease Activity in Psoriatic Arthritis decided to buddy up with changes in tumour necrosis factor-α, IL-1β, IFN-γ, and leptin. Men, on the other hand, must have missed the memo because none of these correlations wanted anything to do with them.
In conclusion, it seems that women and men with PsA are living in two different cytokine and adipokine worlds, both before and after weight loss. But hey, at least we’ve uncovered yet another layer of complexity in the human body, because clearly, we needed more puzzles to solve. Cheers to the researchers for their tireless efforts in stirring the pot of scientific curiosity!