Developmental trajectories of body mass index from childhood into late adolescence and subsequent late adolescence–young adulthood cardiometabolic risk markers

BACKGROUND: Reports on body mass index (BMI) trajectories from childhood into late adolescence, their determinants, and subsequent cardiometabolic risk markers, particularly among European populations have been few. Moreover, sex-specific investigation is necessary considering the sex difference in BMI, and the sex-specific association between BMI and some cardiometabolic risk markers. METHODS: Using a sample from the DOrtmund Nutritional and Anthropometric Longitudinally Designed study, we explored sex-specific trajectories of the BMI standard deviation score (SDS) from 4 to 18 years of age in 354 males and 335 females by latent (class) growth models. The determinants of trajectory were assessed by logistic regression. We identified cardiometabolic risk markers that were highly associated with BMI SDS trajectory by random forest regression, and finally we used generalized linear models to investigate differences in the identified cardiometabolic risk markers between pairs of trajectories. RESULTS: We observed four: ‘low-normal weight’, ‘mid-normal weight’, ‘high-normal weight’, and ‘overweight’, and three: ‘‘low-normal weight’, ‘mid-normal weight’, and ‘high-normal weight’ trajectories in males and females, respectively. Higher maternal prepregnancy BMI was associated with the ‘overweight’ trajectory, and with ‘high-normal weight’ trajectory in both sexes. In addition, employed mothers and first-born status were associated with ‘high-normal weight’ trajectory in females. BMI SDS trajectory was associated with high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol and interleukin-18 (IL-18) in males, and diastolic blood pressure and interleukin-6 (IL-6) in females. However, only males following the ‘overweight’ trajectory had significantly higher IL-18 when compared to their ‘low-normal weight’ counterpart. CONCLUSIONS: We identified sex-specific distinct trajectories of BMI SDS from childhood into late adolescence, higher maternal prepregnancy BMI as a common determinant of the ‘high-normal weight’ and ‘overweight’ trajectories, and ‘overweight’ trajectory being associated with elevated IL-18 in late adolescence–young adulthood. This study emphasizes the role of maternal prepregnancy BMI in overweight, and highlights IL-18 as a cardiometabolic signature of overweight across life. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12933-019-0813-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.