Journal Article

Effects of Malnutrition on Left Ventricular Mass in a North-Malagasy Children Population

Antinolfi, Vincenzo, Bettini, Ranieri, Caricato, Marco, Creta, Antonio, Fittipaldi, Mario, Mottini, Giovanni, Di Berardino, Stefano, Giorgino, Riccardo, Quintarelli, Fabio, Di Gioia, Giuseppe, Costanzo, Davide, Satriano, Umberto, Cruciani, Alessandro, Mangiameli, Giuseppe

2016

Overview

Malnutrition among children population of less developed countries is a major health problem. Inadequate food intake and infectious diseases are combined to increase further the prevalence. Malnourishment brings to muscle cells loss with development of cardiac complications, like arrhythmias, cardiomyopathy and sudden death. In developed countries, malnutrition has generally a different etiology, like chronic diseases. The aim of our study was to investigate the correlation between malnutrition and left ventricular mass in an African children population. 313 children were studied, in the region of Antsiranana, Madagascar, with age ranging from 4 to 16 years old (mean 7,8 ± 3 years). A clinical and echocardiographic evaluation was performed with annotation of anthropometric and left ventricle parameters. Malnutrition was defined as a body mass index (BMI) value age- and sex-specific of 16, 17 and 18,5 at the age of 18, or under the 15th percentile. Left ventricle mass was indexed by height2.7 (LVMI). We identified a very high prevalence of children malnutrition: 124 children, according to BMI values, and 100 children under the 15th percentile. LVMI values have shown to be increased in proportion to BMI percentiles ranging from 29,8 ± 10,8 g/m2.7 in the malnutrition group to 45 ± 15,1 g/m2.7 in >95th percentile group. LVMI values in children < 15th BMI percentile were significantly lower compared to normal nutritional status (29,8 ± 10,8 g/m2,7 vs. 32,9 ± 12,1 g/m2,7, p = 0.02). Also with BMI values evaluation, malnourished children showed statistically lower values of LVMI (29,3 ± 10,1 g/m2,7 vs. 33,6 ± 12,5 g/m2,7, p = 0.001). In African children population, the malnourishment status is correlated with cardiac muscle mass decrease, which appears to be reduced in proportion to the decrease in body size.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Adolescent / Age / Analysis / Annotations / Anthropometry / Biology and Life Sciences / Blood pressure / Body mass / Body mass index / Body size / Cardiac muscle / Cardiology / Cardiomyopathy / Child / Child malnutrition / Child, Preschool / Children / Children & youth / Complications / Correlation analysis / Developed countries / Developing countries / Disease / Etiology / Evaluation / Female / Food intake / Geriatrics / Health aspects / Heart / Heart diseases / Heart Ventricles - pathology / Humans / Hypertension / Infectious diseases / LDCs / Left ventricular function / Madagascar - epidemiology / Male / Malnutrition / Malnutrition - epidemiology / Malnutrition - pathology / Medicine / Medicine and Health Sciences / Muscles / Nutrition / Nutritional status / Organ Size / Pediatrics / People and Places / Prevalence studies (Epidemiology) / Proteins / Surgery / Teenagers / Ventricle