Correlation of blood pressure, obesity, and adherence to the Mediterranean diet with indices of arterial stiffness in children

Abstract

Obesity and adherence to the Mediterranean diet patterns are factors related independently to indices of AS even in 12-year-old children.

High Blood Pressure and Diet Quality in the Spanish Childhood Population

“…Also, our data coincide with those obtained in the enKID study conducted in the past decade (30.4%) and are very close to those reported for other Mediterranean countries as Portugal (31.5%) and Italy (25.1% -27.6%) [39][40][41]. On the other hand, are lower than the values obtained in Greece (overweight: 30.3% and obese: 13.0%) and higher than those corresponding to Morocco and Tunisia where overweight children are below 10.0% [22,[42][43][44].…”

“…On the same line, Lydakis et al in a sample of 277 Greek children aged 12 years, observed that the KIDMED score is negatively associated to "augmentation index" in the brachial artery, regardless of BMI [22]. This study was the first to analyze the relationship between MD and arterial stiffness in children, although a previous study had proven that daily consumption of fruits and vegetables (included as items in the KIDMED index) during childhood, was a protective factor for hypertension and arterial stiffness in adults [54].…”

“…The PREDIMED Study (PREvención con DIetaMEDiterránea) showed, in Spanish population, that the MD has a greater effect on the reduction of cardiovascular morbidity and BP levels than a conventional low-fat diet [21]. In children and adolescents, this topic is still poorly explored and that is why the aim of the present paper is to analyze the association between the degree of compliance to MD and BP in Spanish school children (22).…”

Cardio-metabolic Risk Variables In Pre-adolescent Children - A Factor Analysis

“…employed this methodology, [40][41][42][43][44] and findings from this study support the need to generate reference values relevant to children. The finding that HbA 1c loaded onto the adiposity factor, while FBG loaded onto the vascular factor, is consistent with research identifying that the these two variables reflect different underlying physiological constructs, with FBG reflecting short-term glycemic control 16 and HbA 1c reflecting chronic glycemic control.…”

Longitudinal study of psychopathological, anthropometric and sociodemographic factors related to the level of Mediterranean diet adherence in a community sample of Spanish adolescents

“…There is some controversy regarding the relationship between obesity and MD adherence (30) . Several studies have reported that overweight or obese children and adolescents showed significantly lower levels of MD adherence (20,31,32) . Lydakis et al (31) conducted a cross-sectional study which concluded that overweight and obese children had significantly lower MD adherence levels in comparison to children with a normal BMI.…”