Sex and puberty-related differences in metabolomic profiles associated with adiposity measures in youth with obesity

Abstract

<p>Background</p><p>Specific patterns of metabolomic profiles relating to cardiometabolic disease are associated with increased weight in adults. In youth with obesity, metabolomic data are sparse and associations with adiposity measures unknown.</p><p>Objectives</p><p>Primary, to determine associations between adiposity measures and metabolomic profiles with increased cardiometabolic risks in youth with obesity. Secondary, to stratify associations by sex and puberty.</p><p>Methods</p><p>Participants were from COBRA (Childhood Overweight BioRepository of Australia; a paediatric cohort with obesity). Adiposity measures (BMI, BMI z-score, %truncal and %whole body fat, waist circumference and waist/height ratio), puberty staging and NMR metabolomic profiles from serum were assessed. Statistics included multivariate analysis (principal component analysis, PCA) and multiple linear regression models with false discovery rate adjustment.</p><p>Results</p><p>214 participants had metabolomic profiles analyzed, mean age 11.9years (SD3.1), mean BMI z-score 2.49 (SD +/- 0.24), 53% females. Unsupervised PCA identified no separable clusters of individuals. Positive associations included BMI z-score and phenylalanine, total body fat % and lipids in medium HDL, and waist circumference and tyrosine; negative associations included total body fat % and the ratio of docosahexaenoic acid/total fatty acids and histidine. Stratifying by sex and puberty, patterns of associations with BMI z-score in post-pubertal males included positive associations with lipid-, cholesterol- and triglyceride-content in VLDL lipoproteins; total fatty acids; total triglycerides; isoleucine, leucine and glycoprotein acetyls.</p><p>Conclusion </p><p>In a paediatric cohort with obesity, increased adiposity measures, especially in post-pubertal males, were associated with distinct patterns in metabolomic profiles.</p>