Premium
Leptin is closely related to body fat in prepubertal children aged 8–11 years
Author(s) -
Dencker Magnus,
Thorsson Ola,
Karlsson Magnus K.,
Lindén Christian,
Wollmer Per,
Ahrén Bo
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
acta pædiatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1080/08035250600570561
Subject(s) - leptin , medicine , endocrinology , population , obesity , adipose tissue , stepwise regression , environmental health
Background: In adults and obese children, serum leptin concentrations are closely related to body fat. Aim: To investigate whether such a relationship between leptin concentrations and body fat is also evident in children with a relatively normal body composition. Methods: The study was a cross‐sectional population study in 170 Caucasian children (91 boys and 79 girls), with a mean age of 9.9±0.6 y (range 8.5–10.9 y) and a mean BMI of 17.4±2.6 (range 12.8–28.1). Serum leptin was measured and compared to total body fat as determined by dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry. Results: In the whole population, serum leptin concentrations were highly correlated with total body fat ( r =0.83, p<0.001). A stepwise forward multi‐regression analysis revealed that the inclusion of other anthropometrical data did not add any significance to the model. Leptin concentrations were significantly higher in girls (5.2 ng/ml) than in boys (3.2 mg/ml; p =0.003). Gender differences still prevailed ( p =0.007) after adjusting for number of kilograms of fat tissue. Conclusion: This study shows that, already at the young age of 9–11 y, an adult‐like pattern of regulation of leptin exists. This indicates similar risk factor dependency of leptin across all age groups.