{"doi":"10.2337/dc23-0914","title":"Interleukin-6, Diabetes, and Metabolic Syndrome in a Biracial Cohort: The Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke Cohort","abstract":"OBJECTIVE: Black Americans have a greater risk of type 2 diabetes than White Americans. The proinflammatory cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6) is implicated in diabetes pathogenesis, and IL-6 levels are higher in Black individuals. This study investigated associations of IL-6 with incident diabetes and metabolic syndrome in a biracial cohort. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: The Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study enrolled 30,239 Black and White adults age ≥45 years in 2003-2007, with a follow-up ∼9.5 years later. Baseline plasma IL-6 was measured in 3,399 participants at risk of incident diabetes and 1,871 at risk of metabolic syndrome. Relative risk (RR) by IL-6 was estimated with modified Poisson regression for both groups. RESULTS: Incident diabetes occurred in 14% and metabolic syndrome in 20%; both rates rose across IL-6 quartiles. There was a three-way interaction of IL-6, race, and central adiposity for incident diabetes (P = 8 × 10-5). In Black participants with and without central adiposity, RRs were 2.02 (95% CI 1.00-4.07) and 1.66 (1.00-2.75) for the fourth compared with first IL-6 quartile, respectively. The corresponding RRs were 1.73 (0.92-3.26) and 2.34 (1.17-4.66) in White participants. The pattern was similar for IL-6 and metabolic syndrome. CONCLUSIONS: Although IL-6 was higher in Black than in White participants and those with central adiposity, the association of IL-6 with diabetes risk was statistically significant only among White participants without central adiposity. The association with metabolic syndrome risk was similarly stronger in low-risk groups. The results support the concept of interventions to lower inflammation in diabetes prevention, but to reduce race disparities, better biomarkers are needed.","journal":"Diabetes Care","year":2024,"id":437663,"datarank":0.4551121731090214,"base_score":2.3978952727983707,"endowment":2.3978952727983707,"self_citation_contribution":0.3596842909197557,"citation_network_contribution":0.09542788218926575,"self_endowment_contribution":0.3596842909197557,"citer_contribution":0.09542788218926575,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":10,"citer_count":10,"citers_with_citation_signal":5,"citers_with_endowment":5,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.8899,"is_data_producer":true,"deposit_databanks":{"figshare":["10.2337/figshare.24913368"]},"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1084672,"name":"Katherine Wilkinson","orcid":"0000-0001-6190-735X","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":399553,"name":"Timothy B. Plante","orcid":"0000-0001-9992-9597","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":452962,"name":"Charles D Nicoli","orcid":"0000-0002-8377-1024","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":74972,"name":"Suzanne E. Judd","orcid":"0000-0001-7594-6587","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":752317,"name":"Debora Kamin Mukaz","orcid":"0000-0001-5573-2573","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":51225,"name":"D. Leann Long","orcid":"0000-0001-8614-7190","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":374899,"name":"Nels C. Olson","orcid":"0000-0003-1192-9969","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":51219,"name":"Mary Cushman","orcid":"0000-0002-7871-6143","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":712781,"name":"Brittney J. Palermo","orcid":"0000-0003-1777-2069","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":42,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:00:34.490087Z","pmid":"38237104","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}