Association Between the Serum α-Klotho Level and Insulin Resistance in Adults: NHANES 2007–2016

ABSTRACT

Objective

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between serum α-Klotho levels and insulin resistance (IR), a precursor to type 2 diabetes.

Methods

The study analyzed data from 4,758 adult participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) spanning from 2007 to 2016. The relationship between α-Klotho concentration and IR was assessed using the Homeostatic Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR) and odds ratios (OR) derived from logistic regression models.

Results

Results showed that every 1-ln increase in α-Klotho concentration raised the HOMA-IR value by 0.55 (95% confidence interval 0.35–0.74) and the odds of IR by 64% (odds ratio 1.64; 95% confidence interval 1.28–2.1). The odds of IR was 40% greater in highest tertile than in the lowest tertile.

Conclusion

The findings of this study underscore a significant correlation between increased serum α-Klotho levels and the prevalence of IR.

KEYWORDS:

• Adults
• cross-sectional study
• insulin resistance
• klotho
• National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

Acknowledgments

We thank all the NHANES participants and staff members for their excellent contributions to the completion of the present and other studies. We also thank the Free Statistics team for providing technical assistance and valuable tools for data analysis and visualization. We are grateful to Dr. Jie Liu of the Department of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, Chinese PLA General Hospital, for the statistical analysis, consultations regarding the study design, and editing of the manuscript. Finally, we thank Liwen Bianji (Edanz) (www.liwenbianji.cn) for editing the English text of a draft of this manuscript.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, LM, YG. Methodology, LM, JZ. Validation, YG. Resources, LM, YG. Data processing, YX, YH, LM. Writing – original draft preparation, YX, YH. Writing – review and editing, LM, YG, JZ. Visualization, LM, YX, YH. Supervision, LM, YG. Project administration, LM. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Data Availability Statement

The data generated and analyzed during this study are in the data repositories described in the data source section.

Ethics Statement

The NCHS research ethics review board approved the NHANES study protocol, and all participants provided written informed consent at enrollment (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/irba98.htm). Ethical approval and consent were not required for this study because it was based on publicly available deidentified data.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.