Cardiometabolic index in pediatric patients with overweight and obesity A single center observational study

Abstract

Introduction: Childhood obesity has become a public health problem since it increases the risk of having chronic non-communicable diseases in children. In adults, the cardio-metabolic index (CMI) is a component that takes into account the relationship between waist circumference (WC), height (T), triglyceride level (T), and HDL cholesterol, which is a powerful long-term predictor of diabetes and hypertension. Because there are few studies in children that measure this index, this study was established.

Methods: An analytical cross-sectional study was carried out in children aged 6 to 14 years with overweight and obesity (O&O), treated in 2019 at the Enrique Garcés General Hospital in Quito-Ecuador. The ICM = ((CC/T) / (TG/HDL-c)) was obtained and was associated with the study variables: sex and glucose. A descriptive analysis is done, and the ICM is analyzed by quartiles using the Analysis of Variance.

Results: 250 children entered the study. A higher frequency of O&O was evidenced in patients between 6 and 9 years old, 139/250 (55.6%), and in men, 132/250 (52.8%). There were no statistical differences in anthropometric or biochemical studies between boys and girls. The ICM, the most frequent quartile, was between Q2 to Q3 (0.16-0.21) with 34.8% (n= 87), the Greater quartile of Q3 and Less than Q1, which registered 19.6% (n= 49) respectively. There was no association between diabetes and ICM.

Conclusions: In this study in a population of Hispanic children, the cardio-metabolic index was not associated with the presence of diabetes in children with obesity.