Childhood obesity: serum lipoproteins, glucose and insulin concentrations after an oral glucose load.

In 15 grossly obese children (10 boys, 5 girls, age: 13,1 +/- 2,4 years, mean overweight 71 +/- 13%) an oral glucose load (45 g/m2) was performed. Blood glucose was determined by means of hexokinase method and serum insulin was estimated by radioimmunoassay. According to the criteria of Rosenbloom our results show, that 5 out of the 15 children must be considered to have abnormal glucose tolerance tests. In comparison to reference values basal serum insulin values were slightly elevated, the corespondending concentrations after the oral glucose load were markedly increased in all children. Furthermore, serum lipoprotein determinations were performed using the Lipid-Research-Clinics-Method, NIH, Bethesda: Comparing the mean LDL-cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol concentrations with those of age and sex matched controls no statistical differences could be found. However, the HDL-cholesterol values showed a tendency towards lower concentrations. Our data suggest that disturbances of carbohydrate metabolism in grossly obese children could be only detected after the performance of an oral glucose tolerance test.