Association of leptin with cardiometabolic factors in schoolchildren and adolescents with congenital adrenal hyperplasia

In congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), obesity, hyperinsulinemia and leptin levels are increased. To identify the frequency of cardiometabolic risk factors (CRF) in children and adolescents with CAH and to explore the relationship with leptin levels. Cross-sectional study of 40 patients who underwent anthropometric measurements and had fasting glucose, insulin, triglycerides, 17-hidroxyprogesterone, leptin, HDL and LDL-cholesterol assessed. The patients were classified according to the number of CRFs, and leptin levels were analyzed with the Kruskal-Wallis test. Pearson's correlation was applied between leptin, body mass index (BMI) z-score and body fat percentage. Fifty percent of the patients had obesity and overweight, 59% had hypertriglyceridemia, 40%, hypoalphalipoproteinemia, 27.5%, high LDL-cholesterol and 22.5% insulin resistance. There was positive correlation between leptin and body fat percentage (r = 0.64), BMI z-score (r = 0.55) and the number of CRFs (r = 0.65). In the obesity-adjusted multivariate analysis, leptin levels were associated with the number of CRFs. CAH had a high frequency of CRFs and leptin appeared to be associated with a more adverse cardiometabolic profile in subjects with obesity and overweight.