Association of Acne with Metabolic Syndrome and Insulin Resistance in Young Men

Abstract

Objective: To study the association of acne with metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance in young men. Study Design: A Cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Department of  Dermatology Services Hospital, Lahore. From January 5, 2016 to January 5, 2018. Methodology: A total of 158 patients were selected for study. Age, weight, height, waist, systolic and diastolic blood pressures, serum HDL-C levels, serum triglycerides, fasting blood glucose, fasting plasma insulin, and HOMA-IR score were documented in each patient. Student t-test was applied to compare these variables between cases and controls; and ANOVA test was applied to compare among the acne severity groups. Patients having metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance were compared by applying chi-square test. The data was analyzed by using SPSS v.23 software, considering p≤0.05 statistically significant. Results: Mean systolic and diastolic blood pressures, fasting blood glucose and HOMA-IR score of the cases were significantly high when compared with controls (p-value .015, .002, .022 and .040, respectively). The frequency of metabolic syndrome was 26.58% in the cases and 8.86% of the controls (p=0.004); and of Insulin resistance was 27.85% in cases, while 11.39% in controls (p=0.008). The differences were statistically significant. The difference of systolic and diastolic blood pressures was statistically different in four acne severity groups (p-value .024 and .015, respectively), with systolic blood pressure being the lowest and diastolic blood pressure being the highest in mild acne group. Conclusion: The observations of our study concluded that post-pubertal males with acne are at higher risk of developing metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance when compared with the normal population.

Keywords: Acne, Metabolic syndrome, Insulin Resistance, Blood pressure