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. 2017 Oct 4;12(10):e0185561.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0185561. eCollection 2017.

Reference ranges for serum insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) in healthy Chinese adults

Huijuan Zhu  1 , Yuan Xu  2 , Fengying Gong  1 , Guangliang Shan  3 , Hongbo Yang  1 , Ke Xu  1 , Dianxi Zhang  4 , Xinqi Cheng  4 , Zhihao Zhang  5 , Shi Chen  1 , Linjie Wang  1 , Hui Pan  1
Affiliations

Reference ranges for serum insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) in healthy Chinese adults

Huijuan Zhu et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Purpose: To determine serum insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-I) levels in healthy Chinese adults, establish reference ranges for serum IGF-I levels and observe the effects of age, sex, body mass index (BMI) and geographical region on serum IGF-I levels.

Methods: In total, 2791 healthy adults (1339 males and 1452 females) from the north (Beijing) and south (Guizhou Province) of China were recruited following a questionnaire survey, physical examination and laboratory examination. Both sexes were divided into 13 groups according to age (18, 19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55-59, 60-64, 65-69 and ≥70 years). The serum IGF-I levels were measured by performing a chemiluminescent assay (Immulite 2000®), and the LMS (Lambda-Mu-Sigma) method was applied to construct smooth centile curves of age-specific IGF-I levels.

Results: Serum IGF-I levels in the adults gradually decreased with increasing age from 18 to 70 years in both the male and female participants. Although the decrease in the level of IGF-1 was more pronounced in females than in males, no significant difference was observed between the sexes, except in the 60- to 64-year-old age group (P = 0.0329). The multiple linear regression model showed that there was an inverse relationship between the serum IGF-I level and BMI (P<0.001), and the serum IGF-I level in the Guizhou population was higher than that in the Beijing population (P<0.05).

Conclusion: The normal reference ranges for age- and sex-specific serum IGF-I levels were established for the first time in a large sample of Chinese adults. The serum IGF-I levels were significantly influenced by age, BMI and geographical region.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Curves showing +2SD, +SD, median, -SD, and -2SD of serum IGF-I levels in healthy Chinese adults (males, females and total).
Fig 2
Fig 2. Comparison of the reference ranges for serum IGF-I levels between our study and Elmlinger’s study.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Comparison of the medians of the serum IGF-I levels between the males and females.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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