ESPE Abstracts

Background: Elevated serum uric acid (UA) levels are associated with metabolic syndrome (MS), cardiometabolic risk factors (CMRFs) and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in adults. However, little is known about usefulness of UA to predict MS in adolescents. As the prevalence of obesity among pediatric population has been increasing, it is important to know the factors associated with the CMRFs to prevent future development of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Objective: We aim to evaluate the association between serum UA level and MS and CMRFs among Korean adolescents.

Methods: Data collected from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in 2016 were used, which was a nationally representative cross-sectional data. A total of 548 subjects (males 268, 48.9%) aged 13–20 years were included in this study. They were classified into tertiles of serum UA levels (T1, lower tertile, T2 mid-tertile, T3 upper-tertile) according to sex. Prevalence of MS and CMRFs including alanine aminotransferase (ALT) was compared by tertiles of UA.

Results: The mean UA was higher in males than females (6.3±0.1 mg/dL vs. 4.6±0.1 mg/dL; P<0.001). BMI z-score, waist circumference, waist-height ratio, total cholesterol and non-HDL-cholesterol were significantly higher as T3 of UA in both sexes. Moreover, systolic blood pressure, triglyceride, ALT increased and HDL-cholesterol decreased in males. In T3 of UA, the prevalence and odds ratio increased significantly in abdominal obesity (23.3%; OR 3.1, 95% CI 1.5–6.4), elevated triglyceride (27.3%, OR 2.6, 95% CI 1.4–4.6), low HDL-cholesterol (18.3%; OR 4.7, 95% CI 1.9–11.3), elevated ALT (18.3%; OR 3.4, 95% CI 1.5–7.8), obesity (33.6%; OR 4.9, 95% CI 2.1–11.6) and MS (11.3%, OR 3.1, 95% CI 1.1–8.5), compared with T1 of UA. Proportion of participants with ≥ 3 CMRFs were 4.0% in T1, 5.6% in T2, and 11.3% in T3 (P=0.003).

Conclusions: In this national cross-sectional study, we found that serum UA level is associated with MS, its components and marker of NAFLD in Korean adolescents. Serum UA level could be used as an important marker to predict MS in adolescents.