Abstract
BackgroundThe pediatric obesity epidemic calls for the noninvasive detection of individuals at higher risk of complications. AimsTo investigate the diagnostic role of combined salivary uric acid (UA), glucose and insulin levels to screen noninvasively for metabolic syndrome (MetS) and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. MethodsMedical history, clinical, anthropometric, and laboratory data including serum triglyceride, glucose, insulin, HOMA, HDL-cholesterol, and UA levels of 23 obese children (15 with [St+] and 8 without [St−] ultrasonographic hepatic steatosis) and 18 normal weight controls were considered. ResultsSerum and salivary UA (p < 0.05; R2 = 0.51), insulin (p < 0.0001; R2 = 0.79), and HOMA (p < 0.0001; R2 = 0.79) levels were significantly correlated; however their values tended to be only slightly higher in the obese patients, predominately in [St+], than in the controls. Notably, UA and insulin levels in both fluids increased in parallel to the number of MetS components. After conversion of the z-logit function including salivary/anthropometric parameters in a stepwise logistic regression analysis, a factor of 0.5 allowed for predicting hepatic steatosis with high sensitivity, specificity, and total accuracy. ConclusionsSalivary testing together with selected anthropometric parameters helps to identify noninvasively obese children with hepatic steatosis and/or having MetS components.
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