Elsevier

The Journal of Pediatrics

Volume 167, Issue 5, November 2015, Pages 1049-1056.e2
The Journal of Pediatrics

Original Article
Relation of Cardiometabolic Risk Factors between Parents and Children

Portions of the study were presented as a platform at the meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies, Vancouver, BC, Canada, May 3-6, 2014.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2015.07.053Get rights and content

Objectives

To explore the relations of parent-child cardiometabolic risk factors and assess the influence of adiposity on these associations.

Study design

Associations of adiposity, blood pressure (BP), lipids, fasting insulin and glucose, and a risk factor cluster score (CS) were evaluated in a cross-sectional study of 179 parents and their children (6-18 years, N = 255). Insulin resistance was assessed by euglycemic clamp in parents and children aged 10 years or older. Metabolic syndrome in parents was defined by National Cholesterol Education Program's Adult Treatment Panel III criteria. CSs of the risk factors were created based on age-specific z-scores. Analyses included Pearson correlation and linear regression, adjusted for parent and child age, sex, race, and body mass index (BMI), accounting for within-family correlation.

Results

We found positive parent-child correlations for measures of adiposity (BMI, BMI percentile, waist, subcutaneous fat, and visceral fat; r = 0.22-0.34, all P ≤ .003), systolic BP (r = 0.20, P = .002), total cholesterol (r = 0.39, P < .001), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (r = 0.34, P < .001), high density lipoprotein cholesterol (r = 0.26, P < .001), triglycerides (r = 0.19, P = .01), and insulin sensitivity (r = 0.22, P = .02) as well as CSs (r = 0.15, P = .02). After adjustment for BMI all parent-child correlations, except systolic BP, remained significant.

Conclusions

Although adiposity is strongly correlated between parents and children, many cardiometabolic risk factors correlate independent of parent and child BMI. Adverse parental cardiometabolic profiles may identify at-risk children independent of the child's adiposity status.

Section snippets

Methods

The study was conducted in a cohort of parents (N = 179, mean age 39 years) and their children (N = 255, age 6-18 years). The parents, then aged 6-9 years, were originally enrolled in a study that began with the blood pressure (BP) screening of 10 423 first to third grade children in the Minneapolis Public Schools during the 1977-1978 school year. Following this screening, a cohort was selected for long-term evaluation of CV risk factors as follows: all children from the top and bottom 5

Results

Demographic and clinical characteristics of parents and their children are reported by sex in Table I. Adult men had significantly greater CV risk than adult women as evidenced by larger waist circumferences, higher BP, less favorable lipid levels, lower insulin sensitivity, higher fasting blood glucose and insulin levels, and higher prevalence of metabolic syndrome. Of the 255 children, 168 were between the ages of 10 and 18 years and 87 were 6-9 years old. Among the children, both sexes were

Discussion

Several studies have compared individual CV risk factors between parents and children.1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Our study adds to the current body of literature by evaluating an extensive panel of individual parent-child risk factor associations in both young children and adolescents, and by taking the novel steps of including clustered risk factor associations and assessing the role of adiposity in each of these relations. Because obesity itself is associated with changes in BP, lipid levels, and insulin

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      Glucose dysregulation was also not correlated between parents and youth in two small studies [10,32]. By contrast, some [10,33], but not all [27], prior studies report an association between parent's and youth's blood pressure. Our findings should be interpreted in light of some limitations.

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    Funded by National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (R01DK072124 [to J.S.]), the National Center for Research Resources (1UL1RR033183 to the University of Minnesota Clinical and Translational Science Institute), and the General Clinical Research Center Program (M01-RR00400 and T32DK65519). The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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