No Independent Association of Circulating Fetuin-A with Insulin Sensitivity in Young Women.

Animal data link high circulating fetuin-A to low insulin sensitivity and observational studies identify the hepatokine as a marker of future incident type 2 diabetes mellitus in humans. However, a recent, well-powered Mendelian randomization study finds no causal role. We therefore tested in a deeply-phenotyped human cohort if circulating fetuin-A correlates independently with insulin sensitivity and how it relates to the metabolic syndrome and ectopic fat deposition.