ESPE Abstracts

Rationale: Adequate nutrition is essential for normal growth in childhood and adolescence. The high growth rate during adolescence demands high amounts of energy and various nutrients. During puberty, unlike infancy and early childhood, boys and girls of the same age have gender-specific nutritional needs. Our aim was to examine the associations between the dietary intake of male and female adolescents and their anthropometric measures.<...

Background: Obesity in adolescence is associated with a 70% likelihood of obesity or overweight in adulthood. Hence, effective intervention programs for childhood obesity in high-risk populations are needed.Objectives: i) To compare the efficacy of two intervention strategies, involving parents only vs parent and child, to a control group, in the treatment of childhood obesity. ii) To identify clinical demographical and biochemical predictors for decreas...

Background: GH secretion is affected by duration and quality of sleep. Studies examining the connection between sleep and linear growth have reported conflicting results. Recently, we reported that nutritional supplementation was effective in promoting growth in children. In the present study, we extended our evaluation of the nutritional supplement to assess the association between nutrition, sleep and growth.Objective and hypotheses: To examine whether...

Background: Poor appetite is common in children with idiopathic short stature (ISS), and is usually improved with GH therapy.Objective and hypotheses: To investigate the effect of GH therapy on appetite regulating hormones following a standard meal test (SMT) and to examine the association between these changes and growth response, body composition and resting energy expenditure (REE).Method: Nine ISS pre-pubertal children underwen...

Background: Congenital hypothyroidism (CH) occurs in 1:3000–1:4000 newborns. The majority of newborns with CH are detected by routine screening programs and treatment is promptly initiated following confirmatory thyroid function testing. Although early imaging studies do not influence the treatment decision or management, they establish the underlying diagnosis and may distinguish between permanent and transient CH.Objective: To assess the role of e...

Objective: To describe the differences in metabolic parameters and in time to recovery from Diabetes ketoacidosis (DKA), between children and adolescents with newly diagnosed compared with established Type 1 Diabetes (T1DM).Methods: A single center, retrospective study. The cohort comprised 356 children and adolescents with T1DM who had DKA during 2008-2018. Data were obtained from the patients’ medical files. Recov...

Background: Over the last thirty years, the incidence of adolescent obesity has quadrupled. While the physical risks of adolescent obesity have been well researched, there has been little research on its impact on mental health status and cognitive abilities. In the present study, we intend to examine whether nutritional intervention and weight loss affect executive functions and levels of depression of adolescent girls with overweight/obesity (OW/OB).<p c...

Background: Spontaneous catch-up (CU) growth occurs when a growth-restricting factor is resolved. However, its efficiency is sometimes inadequate and growth deficits remain permanent. The therapeutic toolbox for short stature is currently very limited. Our previous studies using a nutrition-induced CU growth model showed that the level of sirtuin-1 (SIRT1) was significantly increased in food-restricted animals and decreased during CU growth.<p class="abste...

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has tremendous effects on lifestyle that could potentially cause health-related problems. Therefore, extreme preventive measures were taken, including the closure of schools and after school activities. This dramatic alteration in daily routine could lead to adverse consequence of increasing obesity. In this study we aimed to investigate the change in weight status and body composition parameters of children and adolescents du...

Background: The efficacy of growth hormone (GH) treatment in short, healthy children diagnosed with growth hormone deficiency (GHD) or those meeting the criteria of idiopathic short stature (ISS) suggest that an overlap exists between these two conditions. Although flawed and inconsistent, growth hormone stimulation tests (GHST) are the key diagnostic tool differentiating between GHD and ISS affecting clinical decisions such as treatment eligibility and dose.<...