Elevated White Blood Cell Count Is Associated with Higher Risk of Glucose Metabolism Disorders in Middle-Aged and Elderly Chinese People

Hua Jiang, Wen-Hua Yan, Chan-Juan Li, An-Ping Wang, Jing-Tao Dou and Yi-Ming Mu
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Hua Jiang: Department of Endocrinology, Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) General Hospital, 28 Fuxing Road, Beijing 100853, China
Wen-Hua Yan: Department of Endocrinology, Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) General Hospital, 28 Fuxing Road, Beijing 100853, China
Chan-Juan Li: Department of Health Statistics, Fourth Military Medical University, 169 Changle West Road, Xi'an 710032, China
An-Ping Wang: Department of Endocrinology, Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) General Hospital, 28 Fuxing Road, Beijing 100853, China
Jing-Tao Dou: Department of Endocrinology, Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) General Hospital, 28 Fuxing Road, Beijing 100853, China
Yi-Ming Mu: Department of Endocrinology, Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) General Hospital, 28 Fuxing Road, Beijing 100853, China

IJERPH, 2014, vol. 11, issue 5, 1-13

Abstract: White blood cell (WBC) count has been associated with diabetic risk, but whether the correlation is independent of other risk factors has hardly been studied. Moreover, very few such studies with large sample sizes have been conducted in Chinese. Therefore, we investigated the relationship between WBC count and glucose metabolism in china. We also examined the relevant variables of WBC count. A total of 9,697 subjects (mean age, 58.0 ± 9.1 years) were recruited. The subjects were classified into four groups, including subjects with normal glucose tolerance, isolated impaired fasting glucose, impaired glucose tolerance and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). We found that WBC count increased as glucose metabolism disorders exacerbated. WBC count was also positively correlated with waist hip ratio, body mass index, smoking, triglycerides, glycosylated haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) and 2-h postprandial glucose. In addition, high density lipoprotein and the female gender were inversely correlated with WBC count. In patients with previously diagnosed T2DM, the course of T2DM was not correlated with WBC count. Our findings indicate that elevated WBC count is independently associated with worsening of glucose metabolism in middle-aged and elderly Chinese. In addition, loss of weight, smoking cessation, lipid-modifying therapies, and control of postprandial plasma glucose and HbA1c may ameliorate the chronic low-grade inflammation.

Keywords: white blood cell; diabetes mellitus, type 2; glucose metabolism disorders; inflammation; glycosylated hemoglobin A1c (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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