During the first week of our adiponectin educational month, we focused on different aspects of our free white paper “Early Risk Assessment of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Through the use of the Biomarker Adiponectin”, which details the features and benefits of Randox automated Adiponectin, clinical significance and a comparison to traditional methods for diabetes risk assessment.

Randox Adiponectin is an automated biochemistry reagent, used as a biomarker which can powerfully predict the development of pathologies such as Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) and cardiovascular disease (CVD). With the global prevalence of diabetes continually rising in adults over 18 years of age, from 4.7% in 1980 to 8.5% in 2014, adiponectin should be an integral part of every laboratory’s testing panel. Offering an improved method for assessing risk, with a convenient format for routine clinical use, Randox Adiponectin will enable physicians to accurately evaluate more individuals.

Read on to find out more!

Monday 11th September

Traditional Methods for Diabetes Risk Assessment

Randox adiponectin offers a more improved, automated method for assessing Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) risk compared to traditional methods of diabetes risk assessment. Such methods include:

• Fasting Plasma Glucose (FPG) – This is the most commonly used biochemical method of assessing T2DM, however, the specificity of this test is poor. Although many individuals are identified as having impaired fasting glucose (IFG), their absolute risk of conversion to diabetes is only 5-10% per year.
• Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT) – This method is more accurate for risk assessment than other traditional methods, however, it is rarely used in practice as it is takes two hours to perform and is uncomfortable for patients.

Non-biochemical methods for assessing a patient’s risk of developing T2DM take into consideration gender, age, family history of T2DM, BMI, waist size and high blood pressure to give a risk score. Two of the most popular, traditional indicators include:

• Waist circumference – measures abdominal fat reliably, but its association with visceral fat varies by gender and ethnicity.
• Body Mass Index (BMI) – is another common method, however it has limitations in measuring athletes and varies depending on age, sex and race.

Given the limitations of OGTT and FPG, an improved method for assessing T2DM risk, with a convenient format for routine clinical use, would enable physicians to accurately evaluate more individuals. Randox adiponectin is an automated biochemistry test utilising a latex enhanced immunoturbidimetric method which removes the inconvenience and time consumption associated with traditional methods of testing, making it a superior method of testing T2DM.

Tuesday 12th September

Clinical Significance

Recent studies have advocated the testing of adiponectin in clinical settings. It has applications in assessing risk in several diabetes-related conditions including prediabetes, T2DM and GDM. These studies include:

BMJ (2016): Adiponectin levels predict prediabetes risk: the Pathobiology of Prediabetes in A Biracial Cohort

This study found that among health white and black adults with parental history of T2DM, adiponectin level is a powerful risk marker of incident prediabetes. Thus, the association of adiponectin with diabetes risk is evident at a much earlier stage in pathogenesis, during transition from normoglycemia to prediabetes.

Diabetes Care (2013): Low Pre-pregnancy Adiponectin Concentrations Are Associated With a Marked Increase in Risk for Development of Gestational Diabetes mellitus

This was a study carried out on 4098 women who had children within 6 years of initial blood sample and none of whom were pre-diabetic or diabetic. It was found that lower adiponectin concentration measured on average 6 years before pregnancy were associated with a 5-fold increased risk of developing GDM.

Implications for Clinicians

Adiponectin measurement is not yet a routinely run test in many laboratories worldwide and it is therefore not available for many clinicians to request. Yet the implications of this becoming widely available could be extremely valuable as it can help to assess:

• Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Incident prediabetes
• Cardiovascular events
• Gestational Diabetes

When risk is identified via adiponectin measurement, it is essential for individuals to carry out lifestyle modification to reduce visceral fat levels and lowering T2DM risk. This will also help to prevent the development of cardiovascular diseases and metabolic syndrome through the improvement of adiponectin production. This indicates that Randox automated adiponectin should be a routinely run test across the world.

13^th September 2017

Methods of Measuring Adiponectin

Randox adiponectin automated method has many benefits for the laboratory, as the only method of adiponectin measurement available beforehand was through the ELISA assay. The benefits of switching from ELISA to an automated method include efficiencies and expansion.

Efficiencies

The main drawback of using ELISAs for clinical testing within a laboratory is that it is time consuming and personnel consuming as it uses heavy resources with manual interaction. Switching from ELISA to an automated method for the detection of adiponectin increases time and personnel efficiency considerably which leads to cost effectiveness. This benefits laboratories through:

• Ensuring quality in testing practices and confidence in clinical results
• Lowering the risk of error and contamination avoiding compromising clinical results

Expansion

Laboratories can expand their test offerings to patients and clinicians by transitioning analytes which were historically only available on ELISA methods. Adiponectin being available in an automated biochemistry format allows laboratories to expand their test menu with ease and enables the inclusion of adiponectin into routine testing panels. It also allows for detailed patient testing profiles through increased testing range and without the manual restrictions placed by running ELISA techniques.

Randox is presently the only diagnostic manufacturer who has a globally available automated biochemistry test for adiponectin measurement.

14^th September 2017

Randox Automated Adiponectin Assay

The Randox adiponectin assay principle:

• The sample is reacted with a buffer and anti-adiponectin coated latex
• The formation of the antibody-antigen complex during the reaction results in an increase in turbidity – this is measured as the amount of light absorbed at 570nm.
• A sample with higher adiponectin levels will contain more adiponectin and so more antibody-antigen complexes will be formed and the increase in turbidimetry
• By constructing a standard curve from the absorbance of the standards, the adiponectin concentration of the sample can be determined.

Benefits of Randox adiponectin:

• A niche product meaning we are one of the only manufacturers to provide the adiponectin test in an automated biochemistry format
• Automated assay removing inconvenience and time consumption associated with traditional ELISA testing
• Applications available for a wide range of automated biochemistry analysers ensuring ease of programming and confidence in results
• Latex Enhanced Immunoturbidimetric method delivering high performance
• Extensive measuring range for measurement of clinically important results
• Complementary controls and calibrators available offering a complete testing package

The Randox automated immunoturbidimetric adiponectin test offers an improved method for assessing T2DM risk, with a convenient format for routine clinical use, to enable physicians to accurately evaluate at-risk individuals.

Please contact us at reagents@randox.com for more information!

Download our white paper from the resource hub.