Insulin Resistance in Children

This is a very informative paper relating to children early in life already manifesting early cardiovascular and diabetes 2 risk. This study evaluated age 13 year old patients’ risk factors. Their level of insulin resistance was then measured. They initially were evaluated at mean age of 13 then follow up at 15, and 19 years of age. Hypertension 2006 10;48(4):730-6

3 risk factors and the clustering of the factors associated with fasting insulin were followed. The results on follow-up found that the degree of change of insulin resistance from age 13 to 19 predicted levels of the classic risk factors, i.e. increased systolic blood pressure & serum triglycerides, with lower HDL cholesterol. All of these risk factors clustered with the fasting insulin.

This is the first time childhood insulin resistance were shown to significantly predict future levels of risk factors independent from the effects of weight. The authors felt that this suggested that higher degrees of insulin resistance predict a clustering of risk factors that represented what many call insulin resistance syndrome (dysmetabolic).

This allows early treatments of insulin resistance with traditional medications including Byetta.