[A preliminary clinical study of the metabolic syndrome in children]

The aim of the study was to identify and evaluate the metabolic syndrome of overweight children admitted in last 12 month at the 4th Department of Paediatrics.

The study included 21 overweight children aged between 5 to 18 years old. The parameters that we considered were demographics, anthropometrics, biochemical and cardiovascular.

Metabolic syndrome was present in 11 of 21 cases (52.38%). The female gender, children with BMI > 95 percentile and people with low level of socioeconomic status were predominantly affected. A pathologic body mass index (BMI) is highly associated with borderline hypertension in 47% of cases, impaired glucose tolerance in 42% of patients and less with the presence of dyslipidemia (just 23% of patients had abnormal level of HDL-cholesterol, 14% the level of triglycerides above normal and all of them had normal value of the LDL-cholesterol). The obese and overweight children had abdominal obesity (81% of cases). The patients with abnormal value of the IMT had low level of HDL-cholesterol, impaired glucose tolerance and borderline hypertension.

The determination of the carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) is a valuable method for the management of the children with metabolic syndrome and it has to be performed to all overweight children. Because the strong correlations between the different components of the metabolic syndrome, all of these patients have to be evaluated correct and complete.