Plasma sphingomyelins increase in pre-diabetic Korean men with abdominal obesity

Abdominal or visceral obesity is a well-known risk factor for metabolic diseases. However, whether abdominal obesity significantly affects plasma lipid profile during the development of type 2 diabetes has not been fully elucidated. We investigated the differences in plasma lipid concentrations in 63 participants categorized into six groups (middle-aged Korean men); Normal, Pre-diabetes (pre-DM), and Diabetes mellitus (DM) with or without abdominal obesity (AO or lean). The lipidomic profiles were determined by using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Sphingomyelin (SM) levels in plasma were significantly higher in the pre-DM with AO than in pre-DM with lean (p = 0.021). SM concentrations correlated positively with waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) (r = 0.256, p = 0.044), cholesteryl ester (CE) (r = 0.483, p r = 0.489, p r = 0.446, p