Relationship between metabolic syndrome and serum hepcidin level in patients with behcet’s disease

Background: Behcet’s Disease (BD) is a chronic, relapsing, systemic vasculitis of unknown etiology. Patients with BD have increased insulin resistance (IR) and susceptibility to the Metabolic Syndrome (MetS). The association of the hepcidin molecule, which is known to be an antimicrobial peptide, with IR has been recently reported. This study aims to determine the serum hepcidin levels of patients with BD and healthy controls, and investigate the association of IR and MetS. Methods: Twenty patients with BD and 20 healthy individuals as the control group were enrolled in this study. Serum hepcidin levels of all subjects were measured simultaneously with the ELISA method. Results: No statistically significant difference was found between patients with BD and the controls in terms of hepcidin levels (p>0.05). No statistically significant difference was found between patients with BD presenting with and without MetS with respect to the mean serum hepcidin level (p>0.05). A combined evaluation of patients with BD and the controls with IR and/or MetS. Serum hepcidin (p=0.004) level and the hepcidin/ferritin ratio (p=0.001) were significantly low, and the levels of serum ferritin (p=0.008) was significantly high in the group with IR and/or MetS. Conclusion: We found that the hepcidin level of patients with BD was not different compared with the controls, there was no significant difference between patients with BD presenting with IR and/or with MetS in terms of serum hepcidin levels, and serum ferritin levels of patients with BD increased and hepcidin/ferritin ratios significantly decreased compared with the controls.