Fasting glucose versus oral glucose tolerance test for detection of glucose intolerance in obese children Glicemia de ayuno versus prueba de tolerancia oral a la glucosa en la detección de intolerancia a la glucosa en niños y adolescentes obesos

Abstract

Background: Recently, the cut-off point for normal fasting glucose (FG) level, was decreased to 100 mg/dl. Aim: To determine the frequency of abnormal carbohydrate abnormalities in children with obesity and evaluate if the fasting glucose level is a useful tool for the screening of glucose intolerance (GI). Patients and methods: Children and adolescents, referred for evaluation of obesity were evaluated with an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) and FG. The sensitivity of FG for detection of GI, using the 100 and 110 mg/dl cut-off point, was evaluated. Results: We studied 186 patients (125 females) aged 12.1 (range: 5.4-19.3) years with a body mass index (BMI) of 29.9 (18.3-44.6) kg/mt 2 and a BMI Z score of 2.1 (1.7-3.2). Seven patients (3.8%) had abnormalities in the carbohydrate metabolism. The sensitivity of FG for the detection of GI using the 100 and 110 mg/dl cut-off values was 42.9 and 14.3%, respectively. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves showed that the optimal d