Correlation between increased interleukin-6 with insulin resistance in non-diabetic chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients (COPD) have been linked to systemic inflammation. The presence of a systemic inflammatory response is characterized by increased activation and mobilization of inflammatory cells into the circulation. Systemic inflammation is characterized by an increase in proinflammatory cytokines including IL-6, TNF-, and CRP. Increased IL-6 will cause insulin resistance and IL-6 is considered as a good predictive marker for insulin resistance. This research is an analytic cross sectional study. Affordable population is all COPD patients in the pulmonary policlinic at the Sanglah Hospital and Network Hospitals in the period of May to October 2019 who have met the criteria as a research sample. The association between increased IL-6 and insulin resistance was tested using spearmen analysis. The effect of confounding variables such as age, sex, nutritional status, smoking and steroid use, on the relationship of serum IL-6 and HOMA-IR index values were tested using partial correlation analysis. This study included 47 subjects, 42 male (89.3%) and 5 female (10.7%). Results of study, showed that there was no a significant correlation between IL-6 and HOMA-IR (r = -0.24; p = 0.09). Also, there is no influence of confounding variables on the relationship IL-6 and HOMA-IR. Age variables (r = -0.18; p = 0.21), gender (r = -0.18; p = 0.21), nutritional status (r = -0.14; p = 0.32), smoking (r = -0.17; p = 0.26), and steroid therapy (r = -0.18; p = 0.22). On the other hand, obesity status was strongly related to HOMA-IR (r = 0.64; p = 0.001). This study proves that there was no significant correlation found between the increase in serum IL-6 and the HOMA-IR index value. Nevertheless, obesity status is a factor that is very strongly associated with the HOMA-IR index value.