The addition of physical exercise to an educational lifestyle intervention increased the number of children that improved the percentage of hepatic fat and body composition
Among the children that participated in the exercise sessions, 54% significantly reduced their percentage of hepatic fat, in comparison with 34% of the children that only participated in the lifestyle program
Exercise and lifestyle interventions reduce fat mass, cardiovascular risk and hepatic fat in children and adolescents. Therefore, they have been recommended as a treatment option for pediatric obesity, a global pandemic that affects more than 40% of the youths in Spain.
However, not all the participants improve all the variables after performing a particular intervention. “Whereas some participants improve in one or several outcomes after an intervention (these are called responders), others do not change or even worsen their response (called non-responders to the intervention). Usually, the published studies only report the results as overall mean values of the intervention group or groups, but they do not provide individual information of what happens to each one of the participants”- notes María Medrano, author of a recently published article in “Pediatric Diabetes”, which was part of her doctoral thesis.
This study compared the number of responders for hepatic fat, weight, total and abdominal adiposity and the GGT liver enzyme between two different interventions. “Half of all children participated in a 22-week family lifestyle and psycho-educational program, which consisted of a number of sessions and a workshop one day every two weeks. The other half of the children performed three supervised game-based high-intensity exercise sessions per week. “In total, more than 120 families participated in the study”- explains María Medrano, researcher of the IS-FOOD institute group ELIKOS (ELikadura, arIKeta fisikoa eta Osasuna: Nutrición, Actividad Física y Salud) and the person responsible for the exercise sessions.
After participating in the intervention that included physical exercise, 54% of the children significantly reduced or were responders for hepatic fat, 90% for total adiposity and 69% for the GGT liver enzyme. The number of responders for the non-exercise intervention was significantly lower for all the aforementioned variables (34% for hepatic fat, 60% for total adiposity, ad 39% for the GGT). Moreover, it seems that cardiorespiratory fitness improvements could explain, at least in part, the differences between responders and non-responders for some variables.
The authors of this article, researchers from the Public University of Navarra and the University of Granada, highlight the importance of promoting this kind of intervention as part of childhood obesity treatment and its comorbidities such as hepatic steatosis, which increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and future liver complications.
What kind of intervention would benefit a higher number of people?
The aim of this research, focused on the number of responders, is to find the kind of intervention in which a higher number of the participants will reach benefits for their health after their participation.
The article published in the cited Journal of Pediatrics shows that including physical exercise in a childhood obesity treatment program increases the number of children that improve their health after participating in the program. “The results of this work reveal that a higher number of children who are overweight or obese reduced the percentage of hepatic fat, weight, adiposity and GGT liver enzyme after participating in the intervention which included exercise in addition to the educational lifestyle program”- indicates María Medrano.
This article was signed by the researchers Idoia Labayen, Lide Arenaza Etxeberria, Robinson Ramírez-Vélez and the aforementioned cited María Medrano, from the Public University of Navarra, and Jonatan Ruiz Ruiz y Francisco B. Ortega Porcel, from the University of Granada.
