[caption id="attachment_10965" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Overweight teen maintaining child obesity"]
[/caption]Carol Forsloff - New Orleans, LA – New research has found evidence that supports pre-diabetes markers and metabolic syndrome in a high percentage of 7 - 9 year-old children, which reminds us of health negatives for the future without intervention.
Melinda Sothern, PhD, CEP, Professor of Public Health and Director of Health Promotion at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, has examined this issue that shows characteristics of insulin sensitivty, belly fat, fatty liver and total body fat as markers of future problems are seen in young children. She will be presenting her findings at a conference this week in Stockholm at the International Congress on Obesity.
The metabolic syndrome develops during childhood and is associated with several early risk factors including low birth weight, identified by Dr. Sothern for the first time in children as young as seven prior to entering puberty, in a preliminary study. What early characteristics may precede the metabolic syndrome that can explain all this have not yet been established.
These mechanisms may develop from a genetic predisposition or something that happens in the environment before a child is born. There are a host of possibilities for science to examine, but the fact that young children exhibit early signs of troublesome conditions lets people know that intervention needs to take place earlier than thought.
"Although some of the risk factors cannot be changed, pregnancy weight, birth weight, and physical activity can all be modified and are targets for early intervention to prevent or delay insulin resistance and reduce the risk for metabolic syndrome," noted Dr. Sothern, who is the study's principal investigator.
Metabolic syndrome is a group of risk factors linked to overweight and obesity that increase the incidence of heart disease, diabetes, and stroke. In general, a person with metabolic syndrome is twice as likely to develop heart disease and five times as likely to develop diabetes as someone without metabolic syndrome. According to the National Institutes of Health, metabolic syndrome is diagnosed when a person has at least three of the following risk factors: abdominal obesity, high triglycerides, low High Density Lipoprotein (HDL), high blood pressure, and high blood sugar.
The development metabolic syndrome is closely associated with being overweight, lack of physical activity and genetics and ethnicity.
"A genetic predisposition for metabolic syndrome with risk factors occurring early in life makes it even more important to control the risk factors that we can such as being physically active and maintaining healthy weight," noted Dr. Sothern.
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