Significance of cea in diabetes mellitus type 2

Background: Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is a glycoprotein shown to be over expressed in adenocarcinomas especially of colorectal cancer. Recent research indicates that CEA-cell adhesion molecules (CEACAMs) play an important role in signal transduction and CEACAM1 is an important candidate molecule that may cause insulin resistance. It has also been reported that CEACAM1 interacts with other CEACAM protein family members like CEA (CEACAM5) and even both of them share the interacting genes. Objective was to study serum CEA levels in diabetics and determine its significance in type 2 DM, which has never been done before in India.
Material and Methods: 150 non smoker diabetic individuals divided equally into obese and non obese groups were taken along with 50 controls. Serum CEA, Serum insulin, HbA1c, fasting, post prandial sugar levels and lipid profile were also done in all diabetics.
Results: There was a significant difference between the mean CEA values in control and cases (p< 0.001), while there was not much difference between the CEA values in obese and non-obese diabetics. CEA values correlated with insulin (r2=.756,p=<.001), HbA1c (r2=.029, p=.022), HOMA-IR (r2=.348, p<.001), fasting blood glucose (r2=.053, p=.002), postprandial sugar (r2= .197, p<.001), TGL (r2=.103, p=.001), serum cholesterol (r2= .149, p<.001), HDL (r2=.077, p<.001) and LDL (r2=.099, p<.001).
Conclusion: This data supports that increased CEA levels (though not several folds as in cancers) is related to diabetes irrespective of obesity suggesting that CEA functions in the pathophysiology of diabetes, possibly by heterotypically binding to hepatic CEACAM1 that are involved in regulation of systemic insulin concentration.