ESPE Abstracts

Introduction: Childhood obesity is one of the most challenging contemporary public health problems. Children and adolescents with obesity experience multiple psychosocial difficulties, such as low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, and behavioral problems. Psychosocial problems noted in youngsters with excess adiposity persist for a long time. The aim of our study was to assess mental health symptoms in overweight and obese children and adolescents before and a...

Background: Obesity in adolescence represents a major health problem of our century owing to its epidemic proportions and the associated morbidity and mortality in adult life. In Greece, 41% of adolescents are overweight or obese.Aim: The aim of our study was to investigate the effectiveness of a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, personalized management plan at reducing the prevalence of overweight and obesity in adolesc...

Background: Obesity in childhood and adolescence is often associated with dyslipidemia, hypertension, insulin resistance, inflammation, and disturbances in adipocytokine secretion, which lead to endothelial dysfunction and the development of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.Aim: To determine the prevalence of metabolic syndrome (MS) among obese children and adolescents attending our out-patient childhood obesity cl...

Background: Tissue glucocorticoid sensitivity is characterized by a considerable variation in terms of therapeutic response and side effects to synthetic glucocorticoids. The multi-metabolite concentration profile measured by untargeted plasma metabolomics provides a comprehensive metabolic signature that might be used in clinical practice.Objective and Hypotheses: To investigate the usefulness of plasma metabolomics in identifying a metabolic signature ...

Background: Accumulating evidence suggests that decreased 25-hydroxyvitamin [25(OH)D] concentrations are associated with components of the metabolic syndrome.Objective: The aim of our study was to investigate the effect of vitamin D supplementation on metabolic syndrome parameters in obese children and adolescents.Patients and methods: Two hundred thirty two (n=232) obese children and adolescents aged [mean ±S....

Background: Glucocorticoids exert profound immune-modulating effects and regulate the expression of genes involved in cell cycle progression and apoptosis. Synthetic glucocorticoids are the most potent agents used in the treatment of inflammatory, autoimmune and lymphoproliferative disorders. Considerable variation in response to therapeutic doses of glucocorticoids exists among individuals, as evidenced by differences both in disease response and in the incidence of glucocort...

Background: Telomeres are specialized nucleoprotein structures located at the ends of chromosomes playing a crucial role in genomic stability. They consist of tandem repeats of the noncoding hexameric TTAGGG sequence. Telomere shortening has been associated with cardiovascular disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease and stroke, and has been proposed as a biomarker for ageing and a prognostic factor for age-associated diseases.<p clas...

Background: Obesity in childhood and adolescence represents a major health problem of our century and accounts for a significant increase in morbidity and mortality in adulthood. In Greece, more than 35% of children and adolescents are currently overweight or obese.Objective and hypotheses: To develop a National e-Health System for General Pediatricians and General Practitioners for the prevention and management of overweight and obesity. Specific aims i...

Background: Obesity in childhood and adolescence represents a major health problem of our century, and accounts for a significant increase in morbidity and mortality in adulthood. In addition to the increased consumption of calories and lack of exercise, accumulating evidence suggests that childhood obesity is strongly associated with prolonged and excessive activation of the stress system.Objective and hypotheses: The aim of our study was to assess the ...

Background: In humans, glucocorticoids (GCs) regulate a broad spectrum of physiologic functions, exerting both genomic and nongenomic actions through their ubiquitously expressed glucocorticoid receptor (hGR). The rapid nongenomic actions of GCs are likely to be mediated by membrane hGRs that transduce the glucocorticoid signal via activation of kinases. S-palmitoylation plays an important role in plasma membrane localization and occurs through a highly conserved nine amino ac...