Adiposity in childhood predicts obesity and insulin resistance in young adulthood

Objective: To determine whether adiposity in children predicts adiposity, i nsulin resistance, and abnormal lipid levels in young adults. Study design: Children (n = 31) were recruited into an epidemiologic study at age 13.5 +/- 0.3 years and had blood pressure, weight, and height measur ed. They were reevaluated at age 21.8 +/- 0.3 years at which time the measu rements were repeated, a euglycemic insulin clamp was performed, and fastin g lipid levels were measured, All values are expressed as mean +/- SEM. Dat a were analyized by analysis of a variance and linear regression analsis. Results: Body mass index (BMI) in childhood (22.6 +/- 0.6) was highly corre lated with BMI in young adulthood (26.9 +/- 0.9). Childhood BMI was also in versely correlated with young adult glucose utilization (r = -0.5, P = .006 ) and positively correlated with total cholesterol (r = 0.37, P = .05), and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (r = 0.48, P = .01). Conclusions: These data confirm that adiposity in childhood is a strong pre dictor of young adult adiposity. In addition, these results demonstrate tha t cardiovascular risk in young adulthood is highly related to the degree of adiposity as early as age 13.