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Title: Impact of Early-Life Weight Status on Cognitive Abilities in Children.

Authors: Li, Nan; Yolton, Kimberly; Lanphear, Bruce P; Chen, Aimin; Kalkwarf, Heidi J; Braun, Joseph M

Published In Obesity (Silver Spring), (2018 Jun)

Abstract: 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.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.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 (β = -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 (β = -1.7, 95% CI: -3.3 to 0.0) and working memory (β: -2.4, CI: -4.4 to -0.4) scores decreased. Weight status was generally not associated with other cognition measures.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.

PubMed ID: 29797555 Exiting the NIEHS site

MeSH Terms: Body Weight*; Child; Child Development; Child, Preschool; Cognition/physiology*; Cohort Studies; Female; Humans; Infant; Intelligence Tests; Intelligence/physiology*; Linear Models; Male; Memory, Short-Term; Mothers; Neuropsychological Tests; Obesity; Pediatric Obesity/physiopathology*

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