Introduction

Overweight and obesity are an increasing public health problems in children. Currently, attempts are being made to identify differential markers between metabolically healthy individuals (MHO) and metabolically unhealthy children (MUHO). This study aimed to evaluate the differences in uric acid (UA) levels in children with overweight or obesity classified according to their metabolic phenotype using the 2018 Damanhoury criteria.

Material and methods

Retrospective cross-sectional study, included children aged 5–18 years who were evaluated at a pediatric endocrinology outpatient clinic. Eighty patients were evaluated; 36 were classified as MHO and 44 as MUHO according to the levels of triglycerides (TG), glucose, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and blood pressure. The mean difference in uric acid levels was evaluated using Student’s t-test. In addition, three insulin resistance index and their possible relationships with UA levels were analyzed.

Results

The mean age was 11.6 years (SD 3.2 years). Uric acid levels showed a statistically significant difference between the MUHO group (mean 5.4 mg/dl –1.3 SD) and the MHO group (mean 4.5 mg/dl –1.4 SD) (p = 0.0069). A moderate positive correlation was found between uric acid levels and TyG ratio (correlation 0.4137) and TG/HDL index (0.3813).

Conclusions

Uric acid levels were higher in MUHO patients and correlated with insulin resistance indexes. These findings could be used as metabolic risk markers for the evaluation of children with overweight/obesity.