Apparently “low” serum asymmetric dimethylarginine is associated with fasting glucose and tends toward association with type-2 diabetes

OBJECTIVE: We investigated the association of serum asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) with metabolic syndrome (MetS), type-2 diabetes and coronary heart disease (CHD) in the general population. METHODS: Cross-sectional and, at 2000 person-years' follow-up, prospective analysis. Adults with measured serum ADMA level (n=848) were analyzed using tertiles or dichotomized values. ADMA concentrations were measured by a validated commercial ELISA kit. RESULTS: Dichotomized subjects of combined sexes with low (≤0.68 µmol/L) ADMA values had significantly higher fasting glucose, total cholesterol, apolipoprotein B and lower diastolic blood pressure. In linear regression analyses comprising age, smoking, triglyceride, HDL-cholesterol, C-reactive protein and waist circumference as well, creatinine was significantly and independently associated with ADMA, further in women glucose (inversely). In logistic regression analyses uniformly adjusted for age, smoking status and waist girth, prevalent MetS tended to positive independent association with ADMA tertiles only in men. Combined prevalent and incident diabetes weakly tended to be associated with the lowest (vs mid- and highest) ADMA tertiles in combined gender; and prevalent and incident CHD was not associated with ADMA tertiles in either sex. CONCLUSION: Apparently "low" circulating ADMA is independently associated with fasting glucose and tends to be so with type-2 diabetes. The lack of anticipated positive associations of ADMA with cardiometabolic disorders is likely due to autoimmune responses operating against serum ADMA under oxidative stress, rendering partial failure in immunoassay.