An integrative approach to investigate the association among high-sensitive C-reactive protein, body fat mass distribution, and other cardiometabolic risk factors in young healthy women

Prior research has indicated that as an important biomarker of chronic low-grade inflammation, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) can play important roles on the onset of metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular diseases (CVD). We conducted an integrative approach, which combines biological wet-lab experiments, statistical analysis, and semantics-oriented bioinformatics & computational analysis, to investigate the association among hs-CRP, body fat mass (FM) distribution, and other cardiometabolic risk factors in young healthy women. Research outcomes in this study resulted in two novel discoveries. Discovery 1: There are four primary determinants for hs-CRP, i.e., central/abdominal FM (a.k.a. trunk FM) accumulation, leptin, high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and plasminogen activator inhibitior-1 (PAI-1). Discovery 2: Chronic inflammation may involve in adipocyte-cytokine interaction underlying the metabolic derangement in healthy young women.