Association of High Serum Adiponectin with the Risk of Malnutrition and Worse Outcome in Head Trauma Patients; a Cohort study

INTRODUCTION: A number of studies have shown the association between serum adiponectin level and the nutritional status. This study aimed to evaluate the relation between serum adiponectin and changes in nutritional status of head trauma patients. METHODS: The current prospective cohort study was carried out on head trauma patients who were hospitalized in ICU of a General Teaching Hospital, Sulaimani, Iraq. Patients were divided into two groups based on their serum adiponectin level during the first 24 hours of admission (<15mg/L and ≥15 mg/L) and malnutrition and nutritional indices were compared between groups 1, 6 and 13 days after admission. RESULTS: Sixty-four patients with the mean age of 35.97 ± 11.5 years were studied (59.4% male; 57% traffic accidents). The nutritional status of head trauma patients with serum adiponectin ≥15 mg/L significantly deteriorated from day 1 to 13 based on different nutritional status indices. BMI (p = 0.08), LBM (p = 0.002), APM (p = 0.009), and MUAC (p = 0.008) had a significant decreasing trend from day 1 to day 13 in patients with serum adiponectin level ≥ 15 mg/L. In addition, the number of high risk patients for developing malnutrition based on NUTRIC score (p < 0.001) and the number of severely malnourished cases based on SGA score (p < 0.001) significantly increased from day 1 to 13 in this group. The severity of disease based on APACHE (p < 0.001) and SOFA (p < 0.001) scores increased in the mentioned cases during the follow up period. CONCLUSION: Serum adiponectin level ≥ 15 is associated with significant deterioration in nutritional status, increase in the risk of malnutrition, and worsening of the clinical outcome in patients with moderate to severe head trauma in ICU.