Childhood Obesity and Nutrition: Links Between Metabolic Syndrome and Human Growth Hormone Axis
A special issue of Metabolites (ISSN 2218-1989). This special issue belongs to the section "Endocrinology and Clinical Metabolic Research".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 June 2022) | Viewed by 264
Special Issue Editor
Interests: growth hormone (GH) deficiency; GH insensitivity; GH therapy; insulin-like growth factors (IGF); IGF binding proteins; intrauterine growth retardation; fetal programming; personalized medicine; artificial neural networks; prediction models
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Disorders of the growth hormone (GH) axis in children are usually considered in the contexts of growth failure and—less commonly—growth excess. The metabolic effects of GH are so significant that severe GH deficiency (GHD) is an indication for therapy in adults. Even severe GHD is not a commonly approved indication for GH therapy in children and adolescents with body height within normal range. In fact, adverse metabolic effects may be observed in patients with acquired GHD who have had a normal growth rate so far in whom the initiation of substitution (not necessarily growth-promoting) GH therapy requires that short stature is diagnosed or adulthood is reached. The most significant complications of severe GHD include obesity and the components of the metabolic syndrome.
Truncal obesity is one of main phenotypic features of patients with severe GHD. On the other hand, there is evidence that GH response to pharmacological stimulation is lower in overweight and obese patients than in lean ones. Nevertheless, the threshold for normal and subnormal GH peak in stimulation tests is established on a constant level (in different countries, usually 7 or 10 µg/l) independently of patients’ age, nutritional status, and type of pharmacological agent used for the test. This may potentially result in over-diagnosing GHD in children with overnutrition.
Concentrations of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), the main peripheral mediator of GH action, are dependent on both GH secretory and status and nutritional status, which can make diagnostics of GHD more difficult.
Both basic and clinical research focused on relationships between obesity, metabolic syndrome, and GH axis are welcome. This Special Issue is to publish high-quality original research articles and review articles related to this issue, inspired by, but not limited to the aspects mentioned above.
Dr. Joanna Smyczyńska
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- metabolic syndrome
- growth hormone
- insulin resistance
- obesity
- insulin-like growth factor-1
