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International Journal of Endocrinology
Volume 2012 (2012), Article ID 389108, 10 pages
doi:10.1155/2012/389108
Change of Body Composition and Adipokines and Their Relationship with Insulin Resistance across Pubertal Development in Obese and Nonobese Chinese Children: The BCAMS Study
1Endocrine Key Laboratory of Ministry of Health, Department of Endocrinology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Peking Union Medical College and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, No. 1 Shuaifuyuan, Wangfujing, Beijing 100730, China
2Department of Epidemiology, Capital Institute of Pediatrics, Beijing 100020, China
Received 23 August 2012; Revised 29 October 2012; Accepted 9 November 2012
Academic Editor: Daniela Jezova
Copyright © 2012 Lu Xu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
A transient increase in insulin resistance (IR) is a component of puberty. We investigated the impact of body composition and adipokines on IR during puberty in Chinese children. This study included 3223 schoolchildren aged 6–18 years. IR was calculated using homeostasis model assessment (HOMA-IR). We revealed that body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference increased gradually during puberty in both genders, while fat-mass percentage (FAT%) increased steadily only in girls. Change of leptin showed striking sexual dimorphisms: in girls leptin increased steadily during puberty, whereas in boys, after a transient rise at the beginning of puberty, leptin declined by Tanner staging even in those overweight or obese. Inversely, adiponectin level decreased significantly during puberty. In both genders, HOMA-IR started to increase at the beginning of puberty, peaked in the middle, and revised at late puberty in overweight/obesity boys while it stayed high till the end of puberty in girls and normal weight boys. Multivariate regression analysis revealed that leptin presented a stronger indicator of HOMA-IR than anthropometric measures during puberty. Our results demonstrated that gender-specific FAT% and leptin changed with pubertal development. Leptin emerged as a stronger predictor of IR than traditional anthropometric indices, suggesting a prominent role in the development of pubertal IR.