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D l'Allemand, S Schmidt, V Rousson, G Brabant, T Gasser, A Grüters, Associations between body mass, leptin, IGF-I and circulating adrenal androgens in children with obesity and premature adrenarche, European Journal of Endocrinology, Volume 146, Issue 4, Apr 2002, Pages 537–543, https://doi.org/10.1530/eje.0.1460537
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Abstract
To explain why adrenal androgens rise with increasing adiposity during childhood, the role of body mass index (BMI), leptin and IGF-I was studied. We also tested whether these parameters contribute to inducing premature adrenarche (PA).
In a cross-sectional study, 26 prepubertal obese children were compared with a group of 26 prepubertal children of normal weight, and 30 children under observation for PA were compared with 30 healthy children, matched for gender, bone age and BMI.
Relative contributions of BMI standard deviation scores (SDS) and height SDS, as well as unbound leptin and IGF-I, to the levels of androgens, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) and Δ4-androstenedione (AD) were investigated by means of stepwise regression models. Logarithms of all hormones were standardised for age using residuals of a simple regression analysis, labelled by the suffix ‘res’.
In the obese children, height SDS, IGF-Ires, DHEASres (all P<0.05), leptinres (P<0.01), and ADres (P=0.07) were higher than in the controls, and covariates were correlated with each other (leptinres versus BMI SDS r=0.71, IGF-Ires versus height SDS r=0.61). In the stepwise regression analysis of control and obese children, BMI SDS explained 26% and leptinres explained 12% of the variability of DHEASres, but this percentage remained at 26% when both variables were simultaneously introduced into the model. In contrast, IGF-Ires and BMI SDS alone each accounted for 15% of the variability of AD, and their joint influence accumulated to explain 28% of the variability of ADres. In PA, neither BMI SDS nor leptinres were correlated with the increased androgens.
Before the onset of gonadal activity in obese and control children, DHEAS levels, to some extent, are explained by BMI and leptin, while IGF-I in addition to BMI in part accounts for AD levels. Enhanced adrenal androgen secretion in children with PA, however, may be explained by parameters other than leptin or BMI.
