Childhood obesity has been identified as one of the most important risk factors of developing
cardiovascular diseases. The global prevalence of
overweight and
obesity among children shows an increasing tendency. Many of
overweight or obese children will become obese adults with enhanced risk for
cardiovascular diseases.
Childhood obesity is often accompanied by serious consequences such as
dyslipidemia,
hypertension, diabetes, pro-inflammatory state and
non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Hypertension, high
LDL-cholesterol and
triglyceride concentrations,
insulin resistance,
inflammation and disturbances in
adipocytokines secretion are associated with endothelial dysfunction which precedes the development of
atherosclerosis. Obese children and adolescents with a clinically-proven
non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which is currently recognized as the hepatic component of
metabolic syndrome, are at more severe cardiovascular risk compared with normal-weight.
Obesity-related
insulin resistance is highly prevalent in children and adolescents, and is associated with the increased lifetime risk of
type 2 diabetes and
cardiovascular disease.
Adipokines contribute to
obesity-
atherosclerosis relationships yet among several recently discovered
adipokines only few (
adiponectin,
resistin, chemerin,
fibroblast growth factor 21,
apelin) have been partly studied in obese pediatric population. The aim of this review was to describe the spectrum of
cardiovascular abnormalities observed in children with
overweight and
obesity and the role of laboratory in the assessment of cardiometabolic risk in order to differentiate between healthy obese and those at risk to most effectively prevent progression of
cardiovascular disease in childhood.