RESEARCH ARTICLE Fasting Plasma Insulin at 5 Years of Age Predicted Subsequent Weight Increase in Early Childhood over a 5-Year Period—The

Background The association between hyperinsulinemia and obesity is well known. However, it is uncer-tain especially in childhood obesity, if initial fasting hyperinsulinemia predicts obesity, or obesity leads to hyperinsulinemia through insulin resistance. Objective To investigate the predictive effect of fasting plasma insulin on subsequent weight change after a 5-year interval in childhood. Methods 424 Children from Da Qing city, China, were recruited at 5 years of age and followed up for 5 years. Blood pressure, anthropometric measurements, fasting plasma insulin, glucose and triglycerides were measured at baseline and 5 years later. Results Fasting plasma insulin at 5 years of age was significantly correlated with change of weight from 5 to 10 years (ΔWeight). Children in the lowest insulin quartile had ΔWeight of 13.08 ±0.73 kg compare to 18.39±0.86 in the highest insulin quartile (P<0.0001) in boys, and simi-larly 12.03±0.71 vs 15.80±0.60 kg (P<0.0001) in girls. Multivariate analysis showed that the predictive effect of insulin at 5 years of age on subsequent weight gain over 5 years re-mained statistically significant even after the adjustment for age, sex, birth weight, TV-view-ing time and weight (or body mass index) at baseline. By contrast, the initial weight at 5 years of age did not predict subsequent changes in insulin level 5 years later. Children wh