Regardless, the clinical implications of these effects have yet to be explored, as the reported associations between obesity and/or type 2 diabetes (T2D) with CTRP3 levels are contradictory in the literature. The summary finding of all cross sectional human studies, which examine CTRP3 levels, are listed in Table 5. Briefly, CTRP3 levels are reported to be elevated (12), not different (16, 66), or reduced (5,14,52,65,72,83) with obesity and/or T2D. In most reports circulating CTRP3 levels are higher in women than in men (10,14,72,83), with one exception (52). Further complicating the relationship between CTRP3 levels and human health, Wager et al. (2016) reported that CTRP3 levels are elevated with obesity in male but are reciprocally reduced with obesity in female subjects (66). This contradictory gender dependent association of obesity and circulating CTRP3 levels provides some explanation regarding the conflicting data in the literature, as almost all the reported studies combined varying proportions of male and female subjects within each experimental group. Nevertheless, these data demonstrate that there is a gender specific regulation and function of CTRP3 that needs to be explored
