Plasma glucose and insulin levels in relation to cardiovascular risk factors in children from a biracial population—The Bogalusa heart study

In order to describe the natural history of cardiovascular risk factors, we studied 4074 children ages 5–17 yr from an entire geographic population (88% participation, 65% white and 35% black). Fasting plasma glucose, serum lipids and lipoprotein fractions, blood pressure, anthropometric, and other characteristics were measured, and additionally plasma insulin was assayed for 403 children selected randomly. For the plasma glucose and insulin, levels and distributions were compared among the various age, race, and sex groups. Glucose levels initially rose with age and then declined at puberty. We noted a positively skewed distribution for insulin while insulin levels increased with age. In the relationship with cardiovascular risk factors, a positive association was observed for glucose or insulin with body weight, height, obesity indices, serum triglycerides, pre-β-lipoprotein, and inversely with α-lipoprotein levels. All of these variables, however, accounted for only 6–10% of the variation of plasma glucose, but for 16–34% of the variation of plasma insulin. In addition, we found for white boys and girls a positive correlation between systolic blood pressure and plasma glucose, controlling for anthropometric variables and age (Pearson partial correlation coefficient = 0.1, p