ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to examine the lipid peroxidation, plasma antioxidant status and insulin resistance in childhood obesity. To this end, we measured blood lipid profiles, glucose, insulin concentrations, plasma antioxidant vitamins, baseline conjugated diene formation as a measure of LDL oxidation in vivo and TRAP (total radical trapping antioxidant potential) of 93 school children (58 nonobese, 35 overweight-obese). Insulin resistance was estimated by homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR). The overweight-obese children showed significantly higher levels of leptin (p < 0.0001) and triglyceride (p < 0.05) and significantly lower level of plasma lycopene (p < 0.001) and gamma-tocopherol (p < 0.05) compared with the normal weight children. Furthermore, the levels of TRAP were signi-ficantly lower in overweight-obese children (p < 0.05). Significant positive relationships between plasma leptin and conjugated dienes formation (p < 0.005) and inverse relationship between plasma leptin and lipid corrected levels of beta-carotene (p < 0.05), lycopene (p < 0.05) were observed. Our results showed an increased lipid peroxidation and dec-reased antioxidant capacity in childhood obesity which could be involved in the atherosclerotic process.