| dc.description.abstract | Background: Accelerated weight and height gain in infancy
have been associated with premature adrenarche. However,
the exact tempo of these events remains undefined. Thus,
our goal was to assess the relationship between early BMI
and height growth in different periods before 7 years of age
and plasma DHEAS levels at 7 years of age. Methods: This is
a longitudinal follow-up of participants of the Growth and
Obesity Chilean Cohort Study (GOCS) that represents Chilean
children from low- to middle-income families. The subjects
were 972 children (48% girls) with birth weights of
2,500–4,500 g for whom serial weight and height measurements
from birth until 7 years were available. At 7 years of
age, we also measured DHEAS, IGF-I, leptin, insulin, and other
metabolic markers in serum. The main outcome of interest
was plasma DHEAS concentrations at 7 years of age. Results:
At 7 years of age, children with DHEAS >75th percentile of
the sample were taller and fatter and presented higher
HOMA-IR and IGF-I than their counterparts ( p < 0.05). Children
with higher DHEAS were heavier at 4 years of age and
beyond compared to their counterparts (higher BMI [BMI SDS at 4 years: 1.16, 95% CI 1.02–1.29 vs. 0.83, 95% CI 0.76–
0.91, p < 0.001]) and taller at 7 years of age (height SDS at 7
years: 0.19, 95% CI –0.08 to 0.31 vs. –0.001, 95% CI –0.06 to
0.06, p < 0.005). Conclusions : We observed weight and BMI
from 2 to 4 years, and height gains from 4 to 7 years were
associated with higher DHEAS levels at 7 years. | |
