Circulating Neutrophil and Monocyte Ratios to High Density Lipoprotein-Cholesterol Are Elevated with Increased Triglyceride-Glucose Index

Original Research Articles Circulating Neutrophil and Monocyte Ratios to High Density Lipoprotein-Cholesterol Are Elevated with Increased Triglyceride-Glucose Index Ishwarlal Jialal 1,*,† and Beverley Adams-Huet 2 1 UC Davis School of Medicine, 2616 Hepworth Drive, Davis, CA 95618, USA 2 UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +1-530-902-0125 † Retired Distinguished Professor of Internal Medicine and Pathology. Received: 15 March 2025; Accepted: 28 March 2025; Published: 8 April 2025 Abstract: The triglyceride-glucose (TyG) index, is a promising biomarker of Metabolic Syndrome (MetS), Type-2 Diabetes (T2DM) and premature atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases (ASCVD). Whilst increased inflammation is a crucial mechanism in the pathogenesis of these disorders there is a general paucity of data on the association of the TyG index and inflammation. Accordingly, in the present report we investigated the relationship between tertiles of TyG index and accepted measures of inflammation, the ratios of Neutrophil (PMN):HDL-C and Monocyte(Mono):HDL-C in a cohort of 99 individuals (41 controls and 58 patients with MetS). Both PMN:HDL-C and Mono:HDL-C ratios increased significantly with increasing tertiles of the TyG index and both ratios correlated significantly with the TyG index. Also there was a significant correlation with certain biomarkers of inflammation which also increased over tertiles of PMN:HDL-C and Mono:HDL-C. In conclusion, in this cross-sectional study, we provide further support for a pro-inflammatory phenotype with an increase in the TyG index as manifest by increases in the ratio of the professional phagocytes (neutrophils and monocytes) to HDL-C, as a potential mechanism to explain the increase risk for cardio-metabolic syndromes.