Insulin resistance in rheumatoid arthritis: relationship to lipid metabolism disorders and metabolic syndrome

Objective: to determine the incidence of insulin resistance (IR) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and to assess the relationship of IR to blood lipid profile changes and the presence of metabolic syndrome (MS).Subjects and methods. The investigation enrolled 47 RA patients (41 women and 6 men) without a history of diabetes mellitus (DM) and with normal fasting glucose levels during examination. The patients' median age was 56 [39; 62] years; disease duration – 6 [5; 14] years. Most of the patients had low (40.4%) or moderate (42.6%) RA activity (DAS28). IR was diagnosed using the Homeostastic Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR) index 2.77. The presence of MS was assessed by the National Cholesterol Education Program/Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP/ATPIII) criteria and the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) criteria.Results and discussion. The median HOMA-IR value in RA patients was 1.7 [1.1; 3.2]. The HOMA-IR index correlated with age (r=0.3; p=0.04), body mass index (r=0.6; p3.0 (40.0 and 6.3%, respectively; p