Background:

obesity is the excessive accumulation of adipose tissue related to food intake and other factors. The aim of this study was to evaluate the intake of nutrients, anthropometric parameters, health indicators, adipokines and insulin levels in a population of young undergraduates.

Method:

in this study, 378 young undergraduates were invited to participate. Due to the inclusion criteria and their own decision of participating, 90 attended the anthropometric, health indicators: waist circumference (WC), waist to hip ratio (WHR), waist to height ratio (WHtR), and homeostatic model assessment-insulin resistance index (HOMA-IR) studies and completed the questionnaire of frequency of food intake; and 34 participants were selected to perform the determination of biochemical parameters, insulin and adipokines levels: leptin, IL-6, IL-8, tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF- α), monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF).

Results:

according to WC, WHR and WHtR (women: 104 ± 20, 0.87 ± 0.08, 0.6 ± 0.13; men: 112 ± 10, 0.95 ± 0.09, 0.64 ± 0.06, respectively), obese population showed health, cardiovascular and metabolic risk. Overweight population showed cardiometabolic risk. In general, lipid intake was higher than 30%, being animal fat the most consumed. The levels of leptin (women: 17.2 ± 9.2, 28 ± 11.3, 36.8 ± 17.8; men: 4.3 ± 3.6, 9.5 ± 3.1, 24.6 ± 16.4 to lean overweight and obese, respectively) and insulin (women: 408 ± 182, 438 ± 187, 768 ± 167; men: 244 ± 88, 520 ± 256, 853 ± 590) increased along with body mass index (BMI), body fat percentage (BFP), visceral fat area (VFA), WC, WHR and WHtR. Lean (2.4 ± 1.3), overweight (2.2 ± 0.9) and obese (4.3 ± 1.1) women and overweight (2.8 ± 1.2) and obese (5.0 ± 3.1) men showed insulin resistance according to HOMA-IR. Significant correlation between leptin and HOMA-IR was found (p = 0.41). BMI, BFP, VFA, WC, and WHtR positively correlated with leptin (p = 0.67, 0.75, 0.66, 0.60, 0.67, respectively) and insulin (p = 0.37, 0.40, 0.48, 0.49, 0.42, respectively), while WHR only with insulin (p = 0.43). No significant differences were found in the other adipokines.

Conclusion:

the use of health indicators such VFA, WC, WHR, WHtR and HOMA-IR are useful tools in the determination of health, cardio vascular and metabolic risk and are correlated with levels of leptin and insulin in the studied population.

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