Inflammatory mediators in the adipo-renal axis: leptin, adiponectin, and soluble ICAM-1

<jats:p> A lower 24-h urine pH (24h-pH), i.e., a higher renal excretion of free protons, at a given acid load to the body, denotes a reduction in the kidney’s capacity for net acid excretion (NAE). There is increasing evidence, not only for patients with type 2 diabetes but also for healthy individuals, that higher body fatness or waist circumference (WC) has a negative impact on renal function to excrete acids (NAE). We hypothesized that adiposity-related inflammation molecules might mediate this relation between adiposity and renal acid excretion function. Twelve biomarkers of inflammation were measured in fasting blood samples from 162 adult participants (18–25 yr old) of the Dortmund Nutritional and Anthropometric Longitudinally Designed (DONALD) study who had undergone anthropometric measurements and collected 24-h urine samples. Both Baron and Kenny’s (B&amp;K’s) steps to test mediation and causal mediation analysis were conducted to examine the potential mediatory roles of biomarkers of inflammation in the WC-24-h pH relationship after strictly controlling for laboratory-measured NAE. In B&amp;K’s mediation analysis, leptin, soluble intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (sICAM-1), and adiponectin significantly associated with the outcome 24-h pH and attenuated the WC-pH relation. In agreement herewith, causal mediation analysis estimated the “natural indirect effects” of WC on 24-h pH via leptin ( P = 0.01) and adiponectin ( P = 0.03) to be significant, with a trend for sICAM-1 ( P = 0.09). The calculated proportions mediated by leptin, adiponectin, and sICAM-1 were 64%, 23%, and 12%, respectively. Both mediation analyses identified an inflammatory cytokine (leptin) and an anti-inflammatory cytokine (adiponectin) along with sICAM-1 as being potentially involved in mediating adiposity-related influences on renal acid excretion capacity. </jats:p>