Effects of diet and exercise on obesity-related vascular dysfunction in children

Arterial intima-media thickening and endothelial dysfunction in obese Chinese children

“…Mean CCA IMT in our control subjects (0.47 mm for girls and 0.45 mm for boys) compares favourably with the reference data, whereas CCA IMT of our obese patients ranges considerably higher than the mean values reported in three earlier studies by Tounian et al [22] (0.49 mm) and Woo et al (0.47 mm baseline before intervention [27] and 0.49 mm [28]). In fact, it approaches the values measured in hypertensive and obese North American children by Sorof et al [20] which ranged well above 0.60 mm with an upper quartile >0.80 mm.…”

“…An in-depth study of FMD in healthy children reports 7.7±4.0% as the peak value of FMD [11], and Woo et al [27] found a value of 6.9±2.0% among their obese subjects. However, there seems to be a wide variation between individuals (minimum 2.1% and maximum 21.5% for obese children [22]) and across studies.…”

“…A recent study compared obese children from a Hong Kong school community with non-obese peers and found a significantly increased IMT [28]. Another report from the same research group showed a significant reduction in carotid IMT among obese subjects after physical exercise and diet [27], suggesting a certain degree of reversibility of early atherosclerotic changes.…”

“…There is increasing concern over the likely clinical and public health implications of the obesity epidemic, as childhood obesity is associated with several risk factors for later heart disease and other chronic diseases [3,4,14]. Flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) and carotid artery intima-media thickness (IMT) as markers of early atherosclerosis have been studied using vascular ultrasonography in children with familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH) [1,13,17,21,23,24,26], diabetes [9,10,19], hypertension [20] and childhood obesity [22,27,28]. There is, however, still a paucity of data from direct observation to clarify to what extent early atherosclerotic alterations are induced and promoted by childhood obesity.…”

Therapie der juvenilen Adipositas aus sportmedizinisch/sportwissenschaftlicher Sicht

“…In jedem Alter korreliert die Zahl und Ausprägung kardiovaskulärer Risikofaktoren negativ mit der körperlichen Aktivität beziehungsweise Fitness [10,11]. Darüber hinaus konnten Woo et al [12] (2004) bei 82 übergewichtigen Kindern zwischen neun und zwölf Jahren zeigen, dass ein kombiniertes sechswöchiges Ernährungs-und Bewegungsprogramm -anders als eine bloße Ernährungsumstellung -die Endothelfunktion verbesserte. Die Verbesserung konnte bei Personen, die ihr Training anschließend fortführten, auch noch nach einem Jahr nachgewiesen werden.…”