06-DEC-2007
Mom's Belly Fat Predicts Kid's Heart Disease Risk
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A reliable indicator of whether a child will develop metabolic syndrome, which increases their future risk of heart disease and diabetes, is the mother's waist size, researchers from Argentina report. This association was statistically significant and independent of other risk factors.
Among 620 elementary school children, those whose mothers had waist measurements of 88 centimeters (34.6 inches) or greater were twice as likely to have three or more other risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes, known collectively as the metabolic syndrome.
"This study shows that mothers' waist circumference is the most important component to children's metabolic syndrome and should always be determined because it is cheaply and easily measured," Dr. Valeria Hirschler of Durand Hospital in Buenos Aires and colleagues write.
A patient has metabolic syndrome when three or more of the five following conditions are present: abdominal obesity, high triglyceride levels, low levels high-density lipoprotein (HDL), or the "good" cholesterol, high blood pressure and high blood glucose. Having metabolic syndrome sharply increases a person's risk of heart disease or type 2 diabetes.
To understand how the metabolic syndrome in a mother and child was associated, the researchers looked at 620 children, whose average age was 9, and their mothers, whose age averaged about 38.
About two thirds of the children were at a healthy weight, while the rest were overweight or obese. Just over half of the mothers were at a healthy weight. Roughly 70 percent of the children had at least one component of metabolic syndrome, while 10.8 percent had developed the syndrome, as did 11 percent of their mothers. Thirty-six percent of the mothers had abdominal obesity.
When the researchers analyzed different metabolic syndrome components, they found that a mother's waist circumference had the strongest relationship with her child's metabolic syndrome risk. In fact, maternal waist circumference was a stronger predictor than any other risk factor and was also stronger than a maternal diagnosis of metabolic syndrome.
"These findings provide clues for content development of programs for prevention of childhood metabolic syndrome and for targeting at-risk children for intensive intervention," the researchers conclude.
SOURCE: Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, December 2007.
