ESPE Abstracts

Introduction: Obesity development and subsequent white adipose tissue (WAT) expansion is often accompanied by WAT fibrosis which leads to adipocyte dysfunction. Fibrosis is a condition in which extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins are increased aberrantly and results in immune cell infiltration, cytokine production and insulin resistance. Visfatin is an adipokine that is implicated in obesity and its metabolic consequences; however, its role in WAT fibrosis has...

Background: Obesity is characterized by an increase in fat mass caused by an increase in adipocyte number and adipocyte size and is often associated with adipose tissue (AT) dysfunction contributing to metabolic impairment. It is suspected that adipocyte progenitor cells play an important role during healthy and obesity-related AT expansion. Studies in adults showed that the stroma vascular fraction (SVF) of AT is composed of different progenitor cell subpopul...

Background: Growth-and-differentiation factor-15 (GDF15) is a regulator of energy homeostasis, and is used as biomarker of several pathological states.Objectives: To assess longitudinally GDF15 concentrations in a cohort of infants born either appropriate- (AGA, n=70) or small-for-gestational-age (SGA, n=33), the latter known to be at increased risk for central adiposity and metabolic alteration...

Background: The rs72613567:TA variant in the hydroxysteroid 17-beta dehydrogenase 13 (HSD17B13) gene has been associated with decreased risk of liver damage.Aims: To investigate the association between the HSD17B13 rs72613567:TA variant and both hepatic steatosis and biochemical markers of liver damage in obese children and to evaluate its potential effect in NAFLD genetic predisposition.<p...

Background: Obesity results from interactions between environmental and genetic factors. Despite a relatively high heritability of common, non-syndromic obesity (40–70%), the search for genetic variants contributing to susceptibility has been a challenging task. To date, more than 40 genetic variants have been associated with obesity and fat distribution. However, since these variants do not fully explain the heritability of obesity, other forms of va...

Family-based behavioral treatment (FBT) is the recommended intervention for children with obesity (OB). However, there is a large variability in short- and long-term treatment response and mechanisms for unsuccessful treatment outcomes are not understood. We studied brain regions involved in satiety processing in 9-11-year-old children with obesity (OB, n=54) and children with healthy weight (HW, n=22). Subjects underwent a functional magnetic resonan...