Impact of Early-Life Weight Status on Cognitive Abilities in Children.
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ABSTRACT: OBJECTIVE:Whether obesity is associated with childhood cognition is unknown. Given the sensitivity of the developing brain to environmental factors, this study examined whether early-life weight status was associated with children's cognition. METHODS:Using data from mother-child pairs enrolled in the Health Outcomes and Measures of the Environment (HOME) Study (2003-2006), children's early-life weight status was assessed using weight-for-length/height standard deviation (SD) scores. A battery of neuropsychological tests was administered to assess cognition, executive function, and visual-spatial abilities at ages 5 and 8 years. Using linear mixed models, associations between early-life weight status and cognition were estimated. RESULTS:Among 233 children, 167 were lean (?1 SD) and 48 were nonlean (>1 SD). After covariate adjustment, the results suggest that full-scale intelligence quotient scores decreased with a 1-unit increase in weight-for-height SD score (??=?-1.4, 95% CI: -3.0 to 0.1). For individual component scores, with a 1-unit increase in weight-for-height SD score, perceptual reasoning (??=?-1.7, 95% CI: -3.3 to 0.0) and working memory (?: -2.4, CI: -4.4 to -0.4) scores decreased. Weight status was generally not associated with other cognition measures. CONCLUSIONS:Within this cohort of typically developing children, early-life weight status was inversely associated with children's perceptual reasoning and working memory scores and possibly with full-scale intelligent quotient scores.
SUBMITTER: Li N
PROVIDER: S-EPMC5975980 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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