Novel inflammatory markers for incident pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes: the Rotterdam Study

The immune response involved in each phase of type 2 diabetes (T2D) development might be different. We aimed to identify novel inflammatory markers that predict progression from normoglycemia to pre-diabetes, incident T2D and insulin therapy. We used plasma levels of 26 inflammatory markers in 971 subjects from the Rotterdam Study. Among them 17 are novel and 9 previously studied. Cox regression models were built to perform survival analysis. Main Outcome Measures: During a follow-up of up to 14.7 years (between April 1, 1997, and Jan 1, 2012) 139 cases of pre-diabetes, 110 cases of T2D and 26 cases of insulin initiation were identified. In age and sex adjusted Cox models, IL13 (HR = 0.78), EN-RAGE (1.30), CFH (1.24), IL18 (1.22) and CRP (1.32) were associated with incident pre-diabetes. IL13 (0.62), IL17 (0.75), EN-RAGE (1.25), complement 3 (1.44), IL18 (1.35), TNFRII (1.27), IL1ra (1.24) and CRP (1.64) were associated with incident T2D. In multivariate models, IL13 (0.77), EN-RAGE (1.23) and CRP (1.26) remained associated with pre-diabetes. IL13 (0.67), IL17 (0.76) and CRP (1.32) remained associated with T2D. IL13 (0.55) was the only marker associated with initiation of insulin therapy in diabetics. Various inflammatory markers are associated with progression from normoglycemia to pre-diabetes (IL13, EN-RAGE, CRP), T2D (IL13, IL17, CRP) or insulin therapy start (IL13). Among them, EN-RAGE is a novel inflammatory marker for pre-diabetes, IL17 for incident T2D and IL13 for pre-diabetes, incident T2D and insulin therapy start. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10654-017-0236-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.