Research conducted under the direction of Melinda Sothern, PhD, Professor and Director of Health Promotion at the LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Public Health, showing early signs of diabetes in healthy children as young as seven years old will be presented at the American Diabetes Association 2009 Annual Scientific Session Meeting in New Orleans.
Dr. Sothern's group is the first to document previously unknown markers for obesity, heart disease and diabetes, collectively called the Metabolic Syndrome, in children this young. Posters will be presented on Saturday, June 6, 2009, and Brian Bennett, a Research Associate in Dr. Melinda Sothern's laboratory will make the oral presentation, Early Markers for the Metabolic Syndrome in Youth, on Monday, June 8, 2009 at 9:30 a.m. at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, Room 343. Dr. Sothern will be there for the presentation.
Data reported are from 118 healthy children, age 7 - 9 years old, enrolled in LSUHSC's ongoing Study of Insulin-sensitivity in Louisiana Low-birth-weight Youth (SILLY). LSUHSC's Dr. Sothern is the principal investigator of the NIH-funded study which is investigating the importance of birth weight to diabetes.
The increasing prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus in children parallels the pediatric obesity epidemic. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, over the past two decades, the prevalence of children who are obese has doubled, while the number of adolescents who are obese has tripled. And according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 31.9% of children and adolescents were overweight (BMI at or above the 85th percentile) and 16.3% were obese (BMI at or above 95th percentile).
Insulin resistance/poor insulin sensitivity is closely associated with increased total body fat and may precede development of the metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. Indicators of impaired insulin sensitivity have yet to be clearly identified in children prior to puberty.
The LSUHSC researchers found that the child's current fat weight is the strongest predictor for poor insulin sensitivity which is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes. LDL (bad cholesterol) was also strongly associated with insulin sensitivity in the prediction model. Previously unidentified Metabolic Syndrome markers discovered by Dr. Sothern's team include: