Endocrine Abstracts

Child and adolescent adiposity is a problem of major concern not only for Europe, but also for the world at large. Increase of waist circumference, BMI and arterial blood pressure are metabolic syndrome risk factors which contribute to the development of cardiovascular disease, hypertension and diabetes mellitus.

To determine whether changes in arterial blood pressure are related to the increase of waist circumference and BMI in childhood and adolescence.

We examined 1049 schoolchildren (aged 7–18), 535 of whom were included in the study. In the risk group 41 schoolchildren were observed. For the study special questionnaires including 25–28 metabolism parameters were used. The obtained data were processed with the SPSS software packages (BMDP and Systat 9) adapted for biological and medical studies. We also determined the insulin resistance (Caro et al., 1991) and the insulin resistance index (Dunkan et al., 1995).

In our study elevated arterial blood pressure for boys and girls rather correlated with BMI (n=532; r=0.449; P=0.000) than with the increase of waist circumference (n=532; r=0.427; P=0.000), whereas in the risk group arterial blood pressure for both boys and girls more closely correlated with waist circumference (n=39; r=0.403; P<0.05). In the child and adolescent risk group both waist circumference and BMI have a negative correlation with the blood glucose level (n=39; r=−0.432; P=0.000). BMI also negatively correlates with insulin resistance in the risk group (n=39; r=−0.339; P<0.05).

Elevation of arterial blood pressure in children and adolescents strongly correlates with increase of both waist circumference and BMI. In assessing the metabolic syndrome risk factors for children and adolescents both waist circumference and BMI should be taken into account when working out early metabolic syndrome criteria for children and adolescents.