Use of oral contraceptive decrease adiponectin plasma levels?

Adiponectin (APN) is the most abundant polypeptide produced by adipose tissue in humans. It has an important anti-atherogenic role, suppresses the expression of proinflammatory substances and increases the production of nitric oxide, protecting against most diseases related to the inflammatory process, such as atherosclerosis. On the other hand, observational studies indicate that the use of low-dose combined oral contraceptives (COC) is associated with increased subclinical inflammation. Based on the above, it is plausible to think that there is also an association between COC use and decreased APN levels. Objective: To test the hypothesis that oral contraception has an influence on plasma APN levels in women using low-dose COC. Method: Included 44 eutrophic women, aged 19-30 years, irregularly active for at least one year, with fasting triglycerides ≤150mg/dL and using or not COC (ethinyl estradiol between 15-30mcg) for at least one year. The population was stratified into two groups: COCG (22), made up of women using COC and GWCOC (22), made up of women who did not use COC. After 5 hours of fasting, 5 ml of blood were collected for the measurement of APN, C-Reactive Protein (CRP), blood glucose, cholesterol and triglycerides. APN was measured by the plasma radioimmunoassay method. Results: To verify the distribution of data, symmetry and kurtosis tests and the Shapiro-Wilk test were applied. For intergroup comparison of APN values, the two-way Student t-test for independent samples was used. Correlation analyzes between APN and lipid profile values were performed using Pearson's test and CRP by Sperman's test, adopting a significance level of 5%. APN values respectively for COCG and GWCOC were 7.6 ± 1.5 vs 6.0 ± 2.4 (p = 0.37). No significant correlations were observed between APN and lipid profile or CRP. Conclusion: The use of low dose combined oral contraceptive does not cause changes in APN plasma values in eutrophic women.