Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 16, 2026

Study of In Vivo Glucose Metabolism in High-fat Diet-fed Mice Using Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT) and Insulin Tolerance Test (ITT)
Published on: January 7, 2018
Insulin and HOMA in Spanish prepubertal children: relationship with lipid profile
Carmen Garcés1, Beatriz Cano, Juan J Granizo
1Unidad de Lípidos, Fundación Jiménez Díaz, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Avda. Reyes Católicos, 2, 28040 Madrid, Spain.
Objective:
The effects of insulin or insulin resistance on the lipid profile seem to change with age. The aim of this study was to analyze insulin levels and an insulin resistance index and to investigate the relationship between these and the lipid profile in a population-based sample of Spanish prepubertal children.
Methods:
1048 (524 boys and 524 girls) randomly selected prepubertal children were studied. Children were 6 to 8 years old with a mean age of 6.7. Plasma lipid, FFA and insulin levels were measured. The homeostatic model assessment (HOMA) was calculated as an indicator of insulin resistance.
Results:
When analyzing percentile values of insulin, HOMA and FFA by sex, we observed that girls had significantly higher insulin concentrations than boys (except at the 10th percentile) and significantly higher FFA (except at the 90th percentile) with no significant differences between sexes for HOMA. Multivariate regression analyses showed that insulin was positively associated with glucose, triglycerides and apoB in boys but not in girls, and negatively associated with FFA in both genders.
Conclusions:
We report here data about the distribution of insulin in the Spanish prepubertal population. The higher levels of insulin in prepubertal girls could indicate that girls start to be more insulin resistant than boys at this age, although other manifestations of insulin resistance are not yet detectable.
Related Concept Videos
Insulin: Dosing Regimen and Adverse Effects
The basal dose constitutes about 40%-50% of the total daily dose, with the rest as premeal insulin. The mealtime insulin dose should mirror...
Hormones Regulating Blood Glucose
In addition to accelerating glucose uptake and utilization, insulin has...
Hypoglycemia and Glucagon
Diabetes Mellitus: Overview and Type I Subtype
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system mistakenly attacks and destroys the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. As a result, the body is unable to produce sufficient insulin, and individuals with...
Hyperglycemia
Hypoglycemia