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Cord Blood Insulin Levels: It’s Correlation with Gender, Birth Weight and Placental Weight in Term Newborns

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Abstract

The cause of more insulin resistance in female than males are still unknown. To know the cause from early life, normal values of relevant parameters are required. So, aim of this study was to determine the reference levels of glucose and insulin in cord blood of term newborns and to examine their effects on gender, placental and birth weight of term newborns. In cross sectional study 60 consecutive term newborns were included from constituent hospitals. Placental and birth weights were measured and cord blood was collected for estimation of serum insulin and plasma glucose. Plasma glucose estimation was done by auto analyzer (GOD–POD method) and serum insulin analysis was done using Insulin ELISA Kit. After analysis, mean ± 2SD used for estimating cord blood insulin and glucose levels, which were 10.1 ± 7.8 μIU/mL and 67.8 ± 33.8 mg/dL respectively. Correlation of insulin with both birth weight and placental weight were r = 0.359 and 0.41 respectively; p < 0.001. Interestingly we found higher insulin levels in females as compared to male newborns in spite of having lower birth weight in them. In conclusion this study reported the levels of insulin and glucose in cord blood of term newborns. Incidentally, this is the first study as per our knowledge to report significant correlation between cord blood insulin, glucose with birth weight, placental weight and gender in south India. Female newborns had higher insulin levels than males, despite lesser birth weight can be attributed to intrinsic insulin resistance in them.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the Department of OBG and all the mothers of newborns recruited in this study for their kind cooperation. The authors thank Dr. Vinay Kumar Saili for aiding with the statistics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemistry, Center for Basic Sciences, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal University, Bejai, Mangalore, Karnataka, 575004, India

    Afzal Ahmad, Rukmini Mysore Srikantiah, Charu Yadav, Ashish Agarwal, Poornima Ajay Manjrekar & Anupama Hegde

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  1. Afzal Ahmad
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  2. Rukmini Mysore Srikantiah
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  3. Charu Yadav
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  4. Ashish Agarwal
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  5. Poornima Ajay Manjrekar
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  6. Anupama Hegde
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rukmini Mysore Srikantiah.

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The authors have no conflict of interest.

Source of Funding

(i) Part of PG Dissertation granted by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), MOH&FW, New Delhi and (ii) Manipal University Research Grant for MD dissertation.

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Ahmad, A., Mysore Srikantiah, R., Yadav, C. et al. Cord Blood Insulin Levels: It’s Correlation with Gender, Birth Weight and Placental Weight in Term Newborns. Ind J Clin Biochem 31, 458–462 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12291-016-0550-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12291-016-0550-4

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