Body Adiposity and Apolipoproteins in Children and Adolescents: A Meta-Analysis of Prospective Studies

Background: Excess Weight and Cardiovascular Diseases are health problems with increasing prevalence among children and adolescents, hence the need to investigate the issues related to them to better deal with the problem. Objective: To investigate the influence of excess adiposity on the levels of apolipoprotein B and A1 in children and adolescents. Methods: A systematic search was conducted in the PubMed, Embase, Lilacs, Web of Science, Ovid and Science direct databases, searching for cohort eligible studies and evaluating their results, methodological quality and risk of bias; combinable studies with good quality and low risk of bias were evaluated by meta-analysis. The summary measure used was the weighted mean difference (WMD) with its respective 95% confidence interval. Results: 8 articles attended the eligibility criteria including individuals with age mean varying from 9 to 15.7 years of age. The meta-analysis included 4 articles with a total of 7,974 children and adolescents. It was observed a mean increase of 4,94mg/dL (95%CI: 4,22 to 5,67) in the ApoB levels in individuals with excess of body adiposity. For the ApoA1, we identified a mean reduction of -8,13mg/dL (95%CI: -9,09 to -7,17 mg/dL) in its levels in children and adolescents with higher body adiposity. Beside this, the influence of excess adiposity on the ApoB and ApoA1 levels was higher between adolescents than children. Conclusions: The excess of body adiposity influenced both the reduction of ApoA1 values and the increase of ApoB levels, being these changes more relevant among adolescents.