[Association of abdominal obesity in childhood with high carotid intima-media thickness].

To examine the association of abdominal obesity assessed by waist circumference (WC) with carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT) in children. The study participants were from the "Huantai Childhood Cardiovascular Health Cohort Study" conducted in Huantai County, Zibo City, Shandong Province. A convenient cluster sampling method was used to select a primary school in Huantai County to conduct the baseline survey from November 2017 to January 2018. A total of 1 515 children aged 6-11 years old were included. The first follow-up survey was conducted from November to December 2019, and a total of 981 children aged 8-13 years old were finally included after exclusion of those with high cIMT at baseline. Questionnaire survey, physical examination and ultrasonic examination were used to collect general demographic characteristics, WC and cIMT information. According to the status of WC at baseline, the participants were divided into normal WC group and abdominal obesity group. Covariance analysis was used to compare the cIMT levels of children between normal WC group and abdominal obesity group. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to evaluate the association between baseline abdominal obesity and high cIMT during the follow-up. The age of 981 children was (8.5±1.5) years at the baseline. The follow-up age was (10.5±1.5) years, and 520 boys accounted for 53.0%. The cIMT of children in the abdominal obesity group was 0.54 mm, which was higher than that in the normal WC group (0.51 mm) (0.001). Similarly, the prevalence of high cIMT in children with abdominal obesity (23.9%) was higher than that of normal WC group (3.9%) (<0.001). After adjusting for potential covariates at the baseline and during the follow-up period, compared with the normal WC group, abdominal obesity was significantly associated with high cIMT (5.78, 95%:3.43-9.74). The abdominal obesity in children could increase the risk of high cIMT.