{"doi":"10.5334/gh.1436","title":"Lower BMI in Tanzanian Adults with Schistosoma mansoni Infection is Not Explained by Differences in Serum Adipocytokine Levels","abstract":"In 2022, the World Health Organization reported that 1 in 8 people globally were living with obesity, which is defined as a body mass index (BMI) 30 kg/m (1).Adipocytokines are immunomodulatory proteins secreted by adipocytes that act in feedback loops linking obesity and cardiometabolic disease, which typically include leptin, adiponectin, interleukin (IL)-6, IL-18, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-a) (2).Several other cytokines, including IL-10 and interferon-gamma (IFN-), also play key roles in inflammation and cardiometabolic disease (2).Together, these adipocytokines are crucial for regulating hunger, body metabolism, endocrine function, and immune responses.Typically, higher leptin levels and lower adiponectin levels are associated with greater fat mass (2).Infection with Schistosoma mansoni is associated with lower BMI, less obesity, and less cardiometabolic disease, although the mechanism that underlies this effect remains unclear (3, 4).Some studies have hypothesized that S. mansoni infection may affect adipokine-or cytokine-related pathways, thus blocking both obesity and obesity-associated cardiometabolic disease (5).To investigate potential immunometabolic pathways between schistosome infection and BMI, we employed targeted enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) to quantify circulating adipocytokines that play a central role in pathogenesis related to obesity and cardiometabolic disease (2).Serum levels of leptin, adiponectin, IL-6, TNF-, IL-10, IL-18, and IFN- were therefore measured in 144 adults aged 18-50 years residing in northwest Tanzania, in an area highly endemic for S. mansoni, between July 2022 and April 2023.S. mansoni infection was defined as a serum circulating anodic antigen (CAA) level 30 pg/mL, the presence of at least one egg with S. mansoni morphology in stool, and the absence of Schistosoma haematobium eggs in urine (6, 7).Individuals without infection had a serum CAA < 30 pg/mL and were negative for S. mansoni in stool and for S. haematobium in urine (6, 7).Screening and enrollment followed previously published procedures (6), and data on diet, exercise, and BMI were collected using standardized, translated, and validated questions from the World Health Organization's Stepwise Approach to Surveillance (STEPS) for the risk factors of cardiovascular disease.Blood samples were collected to measure serum adipocytokine levels using the Luminex Magpix Multiplexing System (Austin, TX, USA).Samples were run in singlet and diluted to 1:100 for the adiponectin assay and undiluted 4","journal":"Global Heart","year":2025,"id":567617,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.966,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1472200,"name":"Enock Miyaye","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1472201,"name":"Maureen Ward","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":754536,"name":"Daniëlle de Jong","orcid":"0000-0003-4003-5593","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":512957,"name":"Govert J. van Dam","orcid":"0000-0003-3773-0819","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":512956,"name":"Paul L. A. M. Corstjens","orcid":"0000-0002-0004-0526","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":268460,"name":"Jennifer A. Downs","orcid":"0000-0001-9537-204X","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":332197,"name":"Robert N. Peck","orcid":"0000-0002-4526-2480","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":961559,"name":"Hyasinta Jaka","orcid":"0000-0001-8712-7976","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":961557,"name":"Khanh Pham","orcid":"0000-0002-7446-3177","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":11,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:56:48.183032Z","pmid":"40486661","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":[]}