ESPE Abstracts

Background: Subjects born small for gestational age (SGA) are at higher risk for metabolic, hormonal and reproductive problems later in life and about 2–10% of children born SGA do not catch-up in height. All these changes may influence bone mineral density (BMD).Aim: To evaluate hormonal profile and BMD in adolescents born SGA in comparison to their peers born appropriate for gestational age (AGA).Methods: 103 children were e...

Background: Subjects born small for gestational age (SGA) were shown to be at higher risk to later metabolic consequences but early prediction factors of changes in glucose metabolism are not clearly known.Objective and hypotheses: We aimed to investigate glucose tolerance and insulin resistance in adolescents born SGA or appropriate for gestational age (AGA) and their relationship with perinatal and postnatal factors.Method: A pro...

Background: GH promotes longitudinal growth and bone modeling/remodeling. The bone formation markers intact amino-terminal propeptide of type 1 procollagen (PINP), bone-specific alkaline phosphatase (BALP), and osteocalcin reflect different stages in bone formation, i.e. proliferation with collagen synthesis, matrix maturation, and mineralization.Objective: The purpose was to study the time course of different bone formation markers during GH treatment i...

Background: GH is secreted in a pulsatile manner. The resulting GH peaks are known to be associated with growth, whereas the trough levels between the peaks are thought to be associated with metabolism in different tissues. GH trough levels were identified as a metabolically active signal in rats in the 1980th leading to differences in fat patterning with central obesity. Obese children are known to have low bone mass and bone mass is reduced in short children.<p class="ab...

Background: The importance of vitamin D for skeletal health is well established and many recent reports indicate that vitamin D deficiency is linked to chronic diseases. Vitamin D status is defined by serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D), and although there is no consensus on optimal levels of 25(OH)D concentrations of 50 nmol/l (20 ng/ml) meet the requirements in 97.5% of the population. In Sweden, sun cannot synthesize vitamin D during the winter, therefore supplementation is...

Background and Aim: Despite the broad individual variation of pubertal maturation, references traditionally describe growth in relation to just chronological age and not biological age. Hence, growth references for the adolescent period have been of limited usefulness for monitoring individual growth in clinic and for research. Especially for children and adolescents with chronic diseases is there a need to better evaluate if changes in SD-scores just before a...

Background/Aim: Parents wanting to predict adult height (AH) often resort to the old practice of doubling a boy’s height at age 2 years or a girl’s height at 18 months. We coined this the ’Grandma prediction’ (GMP1). It provides predictions with mean absolute error (MAE) 5.9 and 5.2, standard deviations of residuals (sdRES) 4.1 and 3.6, and Pearson correlation r=0.68 and 0.67 for boys and girls, respectively. The recent sophist...

Objective: Patients with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) seldom achieve their target height. Early adrenarche may accelerate bone age maturation and affect adult height. The QEPS-growth-model have been used for developing growth references and investigating healthy/pathological growth, however, not before used in individuals with endocrine disorders. This study aimed to evaluate growth patterns in CAH-patients with the QEPS-model.<s...

Background/Aim: The trade-off theory claims that a resource (calorie) stored in adipose tissue cannot be used for longitudinal growth, and a calorie used for growth will not be stored as fat.Methods: Out of 2339 children with longitudinal heights and weights (birth to adulthood) from the GrowUp1990 Gothenburg cohort, 1993 (996 girls) were analyzed. For everyone we calculated Energy Trade-Off Score: ETOS = at early adulth...

Background: Height references have been available for decades, although only related to chronological age and not considering the broad individual variation in the timing and tempo of pubertal maturation and growth. Therefore, growth references and growth charts for the adolescent period have been of limited usefulness both for monitoring growth in individuals and for research. To fill this gap, we recently developed a new type of height reference based on gro...