Prediabetes more likely for adolescent boys with low birth weight
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Adolescents with low birth weight had higher odds of having prediabetes compared with their peers with normal or high birth weight, according to results of a nationally representative cross-sectional study in Clinical Obesity.
“Although glucose homeostasis dysregulation could occur during childhood, limited research has investigated this relationship in children,” wrote Namrata Sanjeevi, PhD, of the department of nutritional sciences at The University of Texas at Austin, and Jeanne H. Freeland-Graves, PhD, Bess Heflin Centennial Professor in nutritional sciences at The University of Texas at Austin. “These studies have reported an approximately U-shaped relationship between birth weight and type 2 diabetes risk in Taiwanese, Native Canadian and Pima Indian children. However, it is unclear whether the effects of extreme birth weight are manifested in prediabetes.”
Sanjeevi and Freeland-Graves analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2005-2016 from 1,396 adolescents aged 12 to 15 years to assess correlations between birth weight and prediabetes as well as the effect of sex and BMI.
Participants were categorized as having low birth weight (LBW) below 2,500 g (n = 133), normal birth weight (NBW) between 2,500 g and 4,000 g (n = 1,117) or high birth weight (HBW) greater than 4,000 g (n = 146).
Prediabetes was most prevalent among adolescents in the LBW group, which was consistent when adjusting for BMI and waist-to-height ratio, the researchers wrote. Odds for prediabetes among this group were nearly double those of the NBW group (OR = 1.93; 95% CI, 1.1-3.38; P < .05).The proportion of adolescents with prediabetes was similar between the HBW and NBW groups.
Birth weight and prediabetes were significantly associated for boys (OR = 2.4, 95% CI, 1.02-5.67; P < .05), but not for girls.
Additionally, adolescents in the LBW group with current overweight or obesity were significantly more likely to have prediabetes than those with lower BMI (OR = 2.13; 95% CI, 1.01-4.49; P < .05). Current BMI and prediabetes were not associated for the other birth weight groups.
Limitations included potential recall bias for birth weight; only assessing glucose levels once; not considering puberty, gestational age, maternal gestational BMI, in utero exposures and infant feeding patterns as confounding factors; and focus on adolescents aged 12 to 15 years, according to the researchers.
“The current finding contributes to the literature by providing evidence that glucose metabolism abnormalities in LBW individuals with obesity could occur even during childhood, thereby suggesting the need for early-life interventions,” Sanjeevi and Freeland-Graves wrote.
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