Open AccessAssociations between waist circumference, metabolic risk and executive function in adolescents: A cross-sectional mediation analysis
Author(s) -
Anna Bugge,
Sören Möller,
Daniel R. Westfall,
Jakob Tarp,
Anne Kær Gejl,
Niels Wedderkopp,
Charles H. Hillman
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0199281
Subject(s) - waist , mediation , cross sectional study , medicine , anthropometry , cognition , metabolic syndrome , association (psychology) , structural equation modeling , effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance , obesity , circumference , demography , psychology , psychiatry , pathology , statistics , sociology , mathematics , geometry , political science , law , psychotherapist
The main objective of this study was to investigate the associations between waist circumference, metabolic risk factors, and executive function in adolescents. Methods: The study was cross-sectional and included 558 adolescents (mean age 14.2 years). Anthropometrics and systolic blood pressure (sysBP) were measured and fasting blood samples were analyzed for metabolic risk factors. A metabolic risk factor cluster score (MetS-cluster score) was computed from the sum of standardized sysBP, triglycerides (TG), inverse high-density lipid cholesterol (HDLc) and insulin resistance (homeostasis model assessment). Cognitive control was measured with a modified flanker task. Results: Regression analyses indicated that after controlling for demographic variables, HDLc exhibited a negative and TG a positive association with flanker reaction time (RT). Waist circumference did not demonstrate a statistically significant total association with the cognitive outcomes. In structural equation modeling, waist circumference displayed an indirect positive association with incongruent RT through a higher MetS-cluster score and through lower HDLc. The only statistically significant direct association between waist circumference and the cognitive outcomes was for incongruent RT in the model including HDLc as mediator. Conclusions: These findings are consonant with the previous literature reporting an adverse association between certain metabolic risk factors and cognitive control. Accordingly, these results suggest specificity between metabolic risk factors and cognitive control outcomes. Further, results of the present study, although cross-sectional, provide new evidence that specific metabolic risk factors may mediate an indirect association between adiposity and cognitive control in adolescents, even though a direct association between these variables was not observed. However, taking the cross-sectional study design into consideration, these results should be interpreted with caution and future longitudinal or experimental studies should verify the findings of this study.