Adipokines in pancreatic diseases

Recently, because of the growing number of obese people, the correlation between adipose tissue and numerous disorders has drawn the attention of researchers. The products of adipose tissue, adipokines: leptin, adiponectin, visfatin and resistin, affect lipid metabolism, insulin secretion and inflammatory response. Therefore, it is possible that adipokines take part in the pathogenesis of acute pancreatitis (AP), chronic pancreatitis (CP) and pancreatic cancer (PC). Considering the difficulty of a rapid diagnosis and the lack of efficient and specific biomarker, the potential of adipokines as early predictors of pancreatic diseases course and severity was evaluated. The influence of pancreatic disorders on the body weight and the adipose tissue as well as the ability of inflammatory cells to produce adipokines, make it difficult to establish the cause and effect relationship between the levels of these substances and the inflammatory process and cancerogenesis in pancreas. Multiple studies, including measurements of adipokines plasma concentrations and animal models of pancreatic diseases, attempted to clarify the role of adipokines in the development of AP, PC and CP and their utility as biomarkers.