Scientists say a new blood test that analyses lipids could make it easier to identify children at risk of serious health conditions such as type 2 diabetes, liver disease and heart disease.
Researchers from King’s College London said the test, which exploits the link between lipids and diseases that affect a child’s metabolism, could serve as an early warning system for potentially life-threatening illnesses.
The researchers said that by using machines already installed in hospitals to test infant plasma, doctors could be able to spot early signs of illness in children sooner and help them get treatment.
“For decades, scientists have relied on classification systems that divided lipids into good and bad cholesterol, but now a simple blood test can assess a much broader range of lipid molecules that could serve as important early warning signs of disease,” said Dr Christina Regid Quigley, lead author of the study.
Regid Quigley, group leader in systems medicine at King’s College and head of systems medicine at the Copenhagen Steno Diabetes Centre, said the development was significant.
“In the future, this could become a completely new way of assessing an individual’s risk of disease, and it may even be possible to prevent metabolic diseases such as diabetes altogether by studying how to alter lipid molecules in the body.”
The research team’s findings were published in the journal Nature Medicine.
The findings call into question the idea that cholesterol is the main cause of complications associated with childhood obesity, and identify new lipid molecules that contribute to health risks such as blood pressure but are not simply correlated with a child’s weight.
Fats have traditionally been thought of as the good or bad fatty acids in the body – cholesterol and triglycerides – but scientists now believe the picture is more complicated.
Using a technique called mass spectrometry, the researchers discovered that there are thousands of different types of lipids in the body, each with different functions.
The researchers assessed the blood lipids of 1,300 obese children and a control sample, then put 200 of them through a year of the Holweck model, a popular Danish lifestyle intervention for obese people.
Subsequent measurements showed that despite limited improvement in BMI, the intervention group experienced reductions in lipid levels associated with diabetes risk, insulin resistance, and blood pressure.
“Early recognition of children at risk of these life-threatening diseases is crucial,” said Dr Karolina Sulek, who carried out the analysis at Steno.
“This study provides strong evidence that there is a great need for obesity management and gives parents the confidence to intervene more thoughtfully in their children’s lives and help them lose weight.”
The next step for researchers is to understand how genes affect lipids, what that means for metabolic disease, and how we can alter these lipids to improve health.
