Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: The prevalence of obesity in children and adolescents has dramatically increased over the last 20–30 years.

Childhood overweight is associated with higher risk of obesity into adulthood and a higher incidence of metabolic consequences.

Objectives: To identify the prevalence of metabolic complications in obese children and adolescents.

Methods: One thirty-two obese children and adolescents (age over 10) admitted to our clinic over last two years were considered for participation in a transversal observational study.

There were performed auxological measurements (weight, height, abdominal circumference), clinical evaluations (blood pressure), bone age, blood samples for morning glucose, a 2 h glucose tolerance test, insulinemia, glicated haemoglobin, total cholesterol and its fractions, serum triglycerides.

Results: There were 65 girls and 67 boys, aged 10 to 18 years.

The metabolic syndrome (IDF consensus, Lancet 2007) was found in 31.8% of the obese children and adolescents.

Independent of their age, the independent risk factors for metabolic and cardiovascular disease had a high prevalence among the study’ s subjects: impaired fasting glucose in three cases, an altered glucose tolerance in another four cases; 35.6% of the patients had biochemical criteria of insulinresistance (basal insulin levels >24 μUI/ml or HOMA-IR >5.6); 27% of patients had dyslipidemia; 8% of patients had serum levels of TGP slightly altered, suggesting steatosis; 30% of patients had high blood pressure.

The glycated haemoglobin values were not altered in any of our patients, suggesting a week correlation to the metabolic complications.

Conclusions: Metabolic consequences have a high rate of prevalence in obese children and adolescents (minimum 30% of cases).

Key words: obesity, children, metabolic syndrome

Declaration of interest: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the research project.

Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sector.