P1.04: Impact of Weight-Reduction on Arterial Stiffness in Obese Children and Adolescents: A One Year Follow-Up Study

Abstract

Introduction

Recently, in a cross-sectional study, we have found arterial stiffness assessed as carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV) to be reduced in obese children and adolescents. Therefore, we wanted to investigate whether weight-reduction influenced cfPWV independently of blood pressure (BP).

Methods

One hundred obese patients with age 10–18 years newly referred to the Children’s Obesity Clinic were investigated before and after one year of lifestyle intervention. CfPWV and augmentation index at heart rate 75 (AIx@HR75) were measured non-invasively using the SphygmoCor device. Weight-reduction was defined as ΔBMI z score <0. ClinicalTrials.org NCT01310088.

Results

Seventy-three of initial 104 patients were followed up (period: median 364 days (IQR 364–371)). DBMI z score was mean −0.26 +/− SD 0.41 (P<0.0001) in the total group, whereas fifty-five (75.3%) patients responded to treatment. Patients were divided by DBMI z score tertiles into high-, low-and non-responders. No difference was found in clinic BP in the total group at follow up or across responders (P=NS). DcfPWV was higher in the total group at follow up (0.26 +/−0.47 m/s, P<0.0001) with no difference across responders (P=0.87). Furthermore, DcfPWV showed no relationship with DBMI z score (P=0.82), neither when adjusting for gender, baseline age, heart rate and mean arterial pressure (P=0.99). Similar, DAIx@HR75 was higher at follow up (2.77 +/− 9.91, P=0.020) with no difference across responders (P=0.42).

Conclusion

No effect of weight-reduction was found on measures of arterial stiffness. In this respect, the higher arterial stiffness at follow up seems age-related.