The effect of metabolic health on inflammatory and endothelial dysfunction markers in adolescents

What is it about?

Accumulating evidence derived from longitudinal studies indicates that metabolic health in later life can be traced back to childhood. Metabolic health is closely related to the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD), and it has been suggested that inflammation-related mechanisms may be involved. Therefore, using data from adolescence from the Ewha Birth and Growth Cohort Study, this work aimed to determine whether poor metabolic status is linked to levels of preclinical markers of CVD. Furthermore, we sought to evaluate the relationship between unfavorable inflammatory status, preclinical indicators of CVD, and body mass index (BMI) - an easily measurable indicator of metabolic health.

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Photo by i yunmai on Unsplash

Photo by i yunmai on Unsplash

Why is it important?

It is noteworthy that our findings support existing mechanisms and that the relevance was observed in an observational study of adolescents rather than an experimental study. Also, our findings showed that BMI could directly or indirectly affect poor inflammatory status and endothelial dysfunction. This sends the message that maintaining metabolic health, especially maintaining a normal weight from an early age, is necessary to prevent developing CVD later in life.