Antiphospholipid antibodies and lipoprotein(a) in obese children

Abstract

Antiphospholipid (aPL) antibodies, Lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)] and obesity are considered three independent risk factors for development of cardiovascular diseases. We investigate the presence of aPL antibodies and the Lp(a) concentration in 190 obese and 30 healthy children divided into prepubertal and pubertal, compared with healthy adults. aPL antibodies were detected in 2.65% of prepubertal and in 2.59% of pubertal obese children. Considering results obtained by Lp(a) test, 4.4% of prepubertal and 5.2% of pubertal obese children and 17.5% of healthy adults were at risk for development of cardiovascular diseases. The presence of various prothrombotic risk factors increases the probability of developing thrombosis. Considering aPL antibodies there is no statistically significant difference among the different considered groups; therefore each category has the same risk factor. The Lp(a) distribution in adults is significantly different from the Lp(a) distribution in prepubertal (p = 0.012) and pubertal (p = 0.029) obese children. There is no significant difference among prepubertal subjects (p = 0.632) as well as pubertal subjects (p = 0.465), independently from the BMI. These results suggest the control of BMI in young population to avoid the presence of the obesity as another independent prothrombotic risk factor to be added to aPL and Lp(a) in the future adulthood.