Adolescent's Health Behaviors and Risk for Insulin Resistance: A Review of the Literature

Examination of Sleep and Obesity in Children and Adolescents in the United States

PURPOSE

This study contributes to the growing literature on the association between sleep and obesity by examining the associations between hours of sleep, consistency of bedtime, and obesity among children in the US.

DESIGN

Analysis of a nationally representative sample of non-institutionalized children from the 2016-17 National Survey of Children's Health.

SETTING

US, national.

SUBJECTS

Children ages 10-17 years (n = 34,640).

MEASURES

Parent reported weeknight average hours of sleep and consistency of bedtime. Body mass index classified as underweight, normal, overweight or obesity using parent-reported child height and weight information, classified using CDC BMI-for-Age Growth Charts.

ANALYSIS

Multivariate logistic regression models were used to estimate associations between measures of sleep and body mass index weight category adjusting for individual, household and neighborhood characteristics.

RESULTS

An additional hour of sleep was associated with 10.8% lower odds of obesity, net of consistency in bedtime. After controlling for sleep duration, children who usually went to bed at the same time on weeknights had lower odds of obesity (24.8%) relative to children who always went to bed at the same time.

CONCLUSION

Sleep duration is predictive of lower odds of obesity in US children and adolescents. Some variability in weeknight bedtime is associated with lower odds of obesity, though there were no additional benefits to extensive variability in bedtime.

Treatment of Metabolic Syndrome in Children

Although metabolic syndrome (MetS) in children and adolescents is a frequently discussed topic in the literature, uniform guidelines on its definition and treatment are still lacking. Insulin resistance, central obesity, dyslipidaemia, and hypertension are commonly considered the main components of MetS. The first recommended approach to all these pathological conditions in children and adolescents is lifestyle intervention (diet and physical exercise); however, in some selected cases, a pharmacological or surgical treatment might prove useful for the prevention of metabolic and cardiovascular complications. The aim of this review is to present the more recent evidence about the treatment of the major components of MetS in children and adolescents, focussing on the current recommendations concerning lifestyle changes, available drugs, and bariatric surgery.

Metabolic syndrome in children

Despite plenty of currently available information on metabolic syndrome (MetS) in children and adolescents, there are still uncertainties regarding definition, prevention, management and treatment of MetS in children. The first approach to MetS in children consists of lifestyle interventions (nutritional education, physical activity). These recommendations are often difficult to achieve, especially for adolescents, therefore, there is usually a lack of successful outcomes. A pharmacological intervention in obese children may be needed in some cases, with the aim to improve the effects of these primary prevention interventions. Metformin seems to be safe and presents evident positive effects on insulin sensitivity, but long-term and consistent data are still missing to establish its role in the pediatric population and the possible effectiveness of other emergent treatments such as glucagon-like peptide-1 analogues, dipeptidylpeptidase-4 inhibitors, dual inhibitors of SGLT1 and SGLT2 and weight loss drugs. Bariatric surgery might be helpful in selected cases. The aim of this review is to present the most recent available treatments for the main components of metabolic syndrome, with a focus on insulin resistance. A short mention of management of congenital forms of insulin resistance will be included too.

Evaluation of the longitudinal change in health behavior profiles across treatment groups in the TODAY clinical trial

BACKGROUND

Individual health behaviors (ie, eating habits and sedentary lifestyle) are associated with type 2 diabetes (T2D). Health behavior profiles specific to adolescents with T2D have not been described.

OBJECTIVE

To identify health behavior profiles in adolescents with T2D and examine how these profiles change over time.

METHODS

Diet (via food frequency questionnaire) and activity behaviors (via 3-day physical activity recall) examined at baseline, 6 months, and 24 months from participants in the the Treatment Options for T2D in Adolescents and Youth (TODAY) study were used for this analysis. Latent profile analysis identified profiles of health behaviors within three time points, and latent transition probabilities were estimated to examine the change from baseline to 6 months (n = 450) and baseline to 24 months (n = 415). Multinomial logistic regressions were used to examine if the assigned TODAY treatment group (Metformin [Met], Met + Rosiglitazone [Rosi], or Met + Lifestyle) predicted change in health behavior profiles.

RESULTS

Three profiles emerged: "most sedentary," "healthy eaters," and "active and eat most." At 6 months, 50% of males and 29% of females in the Met + Lifestyle treatment group improved in their health behavior profile. Among males only, the Met + Lifestyle treatment group were more likely to improve their profiles from baseline to 6 months (P = .01).

CONCLUSIONS

Three health behavior profiles emerged and shifted over time. A high quality, lifestyle intervention had little effect on improving health behavior profiles. Optimizing outcomes in youth with T2D might require more robust and multifaceted interventions beyond family-level lifestyle, including more extensive psychosocial intervention, novel medication regimen, or bariatric surgery.

Sedentary behavior relates to mental distress of pregnant women differently across trimesters: An observational study in China

BACKGROUND

The independent effect of sedentary behavior (SB) on maternal mental health is still unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine the different relationships of SB with maternal distress in pregnant women across the three trimesters, controlling for the confounding factors including physical activity (PA), diet and gestational weight gain.

METHODS

Survey data were collected from 1272 participants in different trimesters of pregnancy. The data were divided into three data sets based on trimester, and regression analysis was conducted on each data set. Both the linear and quadratic relationships between SB and mental distress were estimated.

RESULTS

There was no significant association between SB and any mental distress symptoms in the first trimester. In the second trimester, SB was positively associated with higher mental overall distress symptoms (β=0.34, P < 0.001), including depress and anxiety. There is an inverted-U shaped curvilinear relationship between SB and mental distress in the third trimester, as SB-squared is significantly associated with mental overall distress (GSI: β=-0.65, P = 0.002, depression: β=-0.53, P = 0.014, anxiety: β=-0.46, P = 0.031).

LIMITATIONS

The data were collected from only one city in China, which may limit the generalizability of the findings for all Chinese women. This was an observational study and causality cannot be established.

CONCLUSION

This study found that the relationship between SB and maternal mental distress depends on trimesters. The stage of pregnancy should be considered when designing interventions for pregnant women to change SB to reduce mental distress.

Poor sleep and adolescent obesity risk: a narrative review of potential mechanisms

Poor sleep is related to increased obesity risk in adolescents, though the mechanisms of this relationship are unclear. This paper presents a conceptual framework of the various pathways that have been proposed to drive this relationship. In this framework, increased food reward, emotional reactivity, decreased inhibitory control, metabolic disturbances, poorer dietary quality, and disrupted meal timings may increase the likelihood of increasing overall energy intake. This paper further notes how poor sleep increases sedentary behavior and screen time, which likely limits overall energy expenditure. The model posits that these mechanisms result in an imbalance of energy intake and expenditure following poor sleep, intensifying the overall risk for obesity. Increases in food reward processes, decreases in insulin sensitivity, disrupted meal timing, and increases in sedentary behavior seem to be the most compelling mechanisms linking poor sleep with increased obesity risk in adolescents. Future directions and clinical implications of this framework are discussed.