Body Composition and Physical Fitness Affect Central Hemodynamics in Young Children

Abstract

Objective: Central hemodynamics are related to cardiovascular (CV) outcomes in adults, but associations with childhood CV risk remain unclear. The study aimed to investigate the association of obesity, physical activity, and fitness with parameters of central pulse wave reflection in young prepubertal children.Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 1,324 primary school children (aged 7.2 ± 0.4 years) were screened for parameters of pulse wave reflection such as augmentation index (AIx), central pulse pressure (CPP), body mass index (BMI), and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) by standardized procedures for children.Results: The mean AIx and AIx@75 were 22.2 ± 7.7 and 29.2 ± 9.2%, respectively. With each unit increase in BMI, AIx [−0.226 (−0.328; −0.125)%] and AIx@75 [−0.444(−0.660; −0.229)%] decreased, whereas peak forward pulse wave increased (p < 0.001). Increasing BMI was associated with higher CPP, but did not remain significant after adjustment for CRF and heart rate. One unit increase in CRF was associated with lower AIx@75 [−0.509(−0.844; −0.173)%, p = 0.003] and lower reflection magnitude [RM: −0.559 (−0.890; −0.227), p = 0.001], independent of body weight and height. Girls had significantly higher AIx, AIx@75, peak backward pulse wave, and RM compared with boys.Conclusion: Childhood obesity was associated with higher CPP but lower augmentation of the reflected pulse wave in children. Assessment of central blood pressures appears to be a valuable asset to childhood CV risk screening. The validity of augmentation indices during childhood development and the association with early vascular aging in children need to be verified in long-term follow-up studies. Physical activity and fitness have the potential to improve vascular hemodynamics in susceptible children and, thus, counteract vascular aging.Trial registry: ClinicalTrials.gov: Exercise and Arterial Modulation in Youth. Identifier: NCT02853747; URL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02853747.

Adverse childhood experiences are associated with vascular changes in adolescents that are risk factors for future cardiovascular disease

“…Although BMI was significantly correlated with PWV in our cohort which corroborates other studies [16,[30][31][32], BMI was not significantly correlated with Alx75 in our cohort. Alx75 has shown inconsistent associations with BMI with some studies finding a negative correlation in children and others finding a positive association in adolescents [8,33,34]. In the Klassen study, both exposure to ≥ 4 ACEs and BMI were significant predictors of vascular stiffness, consistent with our findings using a lower number of ACE exposures.…”

Associations between cardiorespiratory fitness, fatness, hemodynamic characteristics, and sedentary behaviour in primary school-aged children

“…Many parameters (anthropometric, hemodynamics, quality of life) can affect or even be affected by CRF [ 12 – 14 ]. Surprisingly, research has not yet to establish the relation considering fatness, hemodymanic characteristics and sedentary behaviour together in CRF for Greek primary school-aged children.…”

Physical Fitness: Effects of active lifestyle internalization through physical literacy awarenes based project

“…(Pahkala et al, 2013;Suryadi, 2022;Suryadi, Suganda, et al, 2023), health (Moreno-Quispe, Apaza-Panca, Tavara-Ramos, & Mamani-Cornejo, 2021), physical fitness (Dede Pebriandi Sihotang & Novita, 2021), pediatric knee structure (Antony et al, 2016), adiposity, bone health, psychological health, and cardiorespiratory fitness (Loprinzi, Cardinal, Loprinzi, & Lee, 2012). Furthermore, the provision of physical activity was also found to improve children's vascular hemodynamics (Köchli et al, 2021), reduce body fat levels (Dias et al, 2018;Magalhães et al, 2019;Ortega, Ruiz, & Castillo, 2013;Türk et al, 2017). Prevention of overweight (Obert, Pearlman, Obert, & Chapin, 2017;Wewege, van den Berg, Ward, & Keech, 2017), obesity (Afrasyabi, Marandi, & Kargarfard, 2019;de Lira et al, 2017;De Lorenzo, Van Bavel, De Moraes, & Tibiriça, 2018;Musálek et al, 2021;Ortega et al, 2013;Soh, Joo, Yun, & Kim, 2020), type 2 diabetes mellitus (Rush & Simmons, 2014), and possibly increasing sports participation in high school (Battista et al, 2021).…”