Regional adiposity and markers of inflammation in pre-school age children.

Sci Rep. 2018 Oct 12;8(1):15204

Authors: Delaney KZ, Vanstone CA, Weiler HA, Santosa S

Abstract

In adults, upper body fat partially increases metabolic disease risk through increasing systemic inflammation. Our objective was to determine if this relationship exists in preschool-aged children. A subset of children (n?=?71, 35 males), 3.7?±?1.0?y, were studied from n?=?515 children recruited from randomly selected daycares in Montréal, QC. According to WHO charts for 2-5?y, 49 children were healthy weight (HW) and 21 were overweight (OW). Adiposity was determined through dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry. Blood concentrations of C-reactive protein (CRP) and tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNFa) were determined via enzyme-linked immunosorbent and multiplex assays, respectively. OW children had higher (p?=?0.03) android:gynoid ratio 0.50?±?0.09 compared to HW children 0.56?±?0.12, indicating excess fat was predominantly stored in the abdominal depot. CRP was higher (p?=?0.01) in OW children 1.45?±?2.02?mg/L compared to HW 0.74?±?1.38?mg/L. Percent fat was correlated with CRP (r?=?0.32; p?<?0.01) and TNFa (r?=?0.25; p?=?0.04) concentrations. CRP also correlated with android adiposity (r?=?0.24; p?=?0.04) and TNFa correlated with gynoid adiposity (r?=?0.24; p?=?0.04). We observed that greater adiposity is associated with higher systemic inflammation in pre-school aged children. Future longitudinal studies are needed to understand the long term consequences of excess total and regional body fat in young children.

PMID: 30315178 [PubMed - in process]