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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Does Systemic Low-Grade Inflammation Associate With Fat Accumulation and Distribution? A 7-Year Follow-Up Study With Peripubertal Girls

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Knowledge about the interrelationship between adiposity and systemic low-grade inflammation during pubertal growth is important in detecting early signs of obesity-related metabolic disorders.The objective of the study was to evaluate the developmental trajectories of fat mass (FM) and high sensitive C-reactive protein (hsCRP) levels and factors that could explain the relationship between FM and hsCRP in girls from prepuberty to early adulthood.This was a 7.5-year longitudinal study.The study was conducted at the University of Jyväskylä Sports and Health Science laboratory.Three hundred ninety-six healthy Finnish girls aged 11.2 ± 0.8 years participated in the study.Body composition was assessed by a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry and serum concentrations of hsCRP, adipokines, and sex hormones by ELISA.Both FM and hsCRP increased with age and had similar trajectories but different inter- and intravariance patterns. A joint analysis of fat distribution and hsCRP indicated that the linkage probabilities across different trajectory subgroups between regional FM and the corresponding hsCRP levels varied from 16% to 53%. In a longitudinal regression model, the common predictor for both FM and hsCRP was T (β = .065, P0.01, and β = -.213, P0.05, respectively) before menarche. Other factors predicting FM before menarche were SHBG (β = -.196, P0.01) and leptin (β = .381, P.01); and after menarche hsCRP (β = .048, P0.01), T (β = .089, P.01), leptin (β = .340, P.01), and adiponectin (β = -.086, P.05). Of the factors assessed, only FM was associated with hsCRP both before and after menarche (β =1.058, P.01 and β =1.121, P.01, respectively).The differences in regional body fat depots and hsCRP levels in adulthood are largely established early in childhood. However, the intra- and interindividual variances differed between FM and hsCRP. FM explained the variance of hsCRP during pubertal growth, but the reverse was not true, which suggests that FM contributes to low-grade inflammation and not vice versa.