Insulin Resistance Differs Among Teenage Boys and Girls

<p>TUESDAY, April 22 (HealthDay News) -- Insulin resistance develops differently in boys and girls as they transition from late childhood through adolescence, according to a study published online April 21 in <i>Circulation</i>.</p><p>Antoinette Moran, M.D., of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and colleagues conducted three rounds of study comprising 996 observations of a cohort of 507 children from 363 families. They used a euglycemic clamp to measure insulin sensitivity.</p><p>In the two sexes, there were similar increases in body mass index and waist circumference from age 11 to age 19, but body fat decreased in males and increased in females and lean body mass increased more steeply in males. Whereas males had lower insulin resistance at age 11 and it steadily increased until age 19, insulin resistance did not increase in females over the same time period. By the time they were 19, males had become more insulin-resistant than females.</p><p>"Triglycerides increased in males and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol decreased, whereas the opposite pattern was seen in females," the authors write. " These gender-related developmental changes in insulin resistance, which were independent from changes in fatness, total cholesterol, and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, are consistent with an early role for insulin resistance in the increased cardiovascular risk found in males."</p><p><a href=" http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/CIRCULATIONAHA.107.704569v1" target="_new">Abstract</a><br/><a href=" http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/CIRCULATIONAHA.107.704569v1" target="_new">Full Text (subscription or payment may be required)</a></p>

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