Relationship between skin tags, leptin hormone and metabolic disturbances

摘要

Background Skin tags are small skin colored to dark brown sessile or pedunculated papillomas commonly occurring on the neck, axillae and the eye lids, less often on the trunk and groin. Many theories were existing to explain the occurrence of skin tags, some authors reported that skin rubbing, skin aging and a familial predisposition are causes for skin tags, while others described hormonal imbalances and hyper-insulinemia as contributing factors. The association of skin tags with many diseases as obesity, acromegaly, Crohn's disease and diabetes mellitus was proposed.Objectives Assessment of serum leptin, atherogenic lipids, HBAlC and fasting blood glucose levels in patients with skin tags trying to find a correlation between skin tags and the metabolic profile.Patients and methods 50 persons were included in this study, they were divided into 2 groups, the first group included 30 patients (each with 3 or more skin tags) and the second group was age and sex matched 20 apparently healthy volunteers with no skin tags as control. Patients and controls were subjected to full history taking, dermatological examination, measurement of body mass index and assessment of fasting glucose level, HbAlC, cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL, LDL and serum leptin level which was measured by using Solid Phase Sandwich ELISA.Results Highly significant difference was found of the fasting blood glucose, HbAIC, serum cholesterol, LDL and VLDL between patients and controls while serum TG and HDL were higher in patients than controls but did not reach the statistical significance. As regard the serum leptin level we found a highly significant difference between patients and control.Conclusion Skin tags are associated with increased serum leptin, hyperglycemia, increased HbAlC, dyslipidemic lipid profile and obesity.