assessing inherited markers of metabolic syndrome in the young

Conditions: Metabolic Syndrome; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2; Obesity

Summary: the aimm young study is a collaboration between children's national medical center (cnmc) and colleges/universities nationwide--currently including howard university (hu), east carolina university (ecu), and university of massachusetts, amherst (u mass). this study obtains a variety of baseline measures (such as serum biomarkers related to metabolic syndrome, anthropometrics, muscle strength, and fitness testing) along with genetic information from healthy college-age (18-35 years) young adults in efforts to identify phenotype-genotype associations that may predispose individuals to developing metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and/or related diseases such as obesity. we hypothesized that certain genetic variations will be protective against metabolic syndrome, while others will show a strong correlation with specific components of metabolic syndrome disease. we expect that the study of "pre-symptomatic," young individuals will facilitate the identification of genetic risk loci for metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. younger populations typically have less confounding variables, and this facilitates normalizing of metabolic syndrome features and environment/lifestyle. additionally, young subjects can provide more robust longitudinal data, and be recruited into subsequent interventions to reverse the trend towards metabolic syndrome, rather than the more difficult task of reversing type 2 diabetes in older populations. the data collected will be stratified according to gender, age, ethnicity, genotype, and other phenotypic measures to determine how these factors influence disease risk.


Eligibility criteria:
inclusion criteria: * between the ages of 18 and 35 years * post-puberty * willing and able to provide informed consent * stable medical and psychosocial status providing a high likelihood of follow-up and compliance with study protocol * all ethnic backgrounds will be included in this study. exclusion criteria: * evidence of clinically relevant systemic disease associated with disorders of glucose metabolism * chronic use of glucocorticoid or appetite suppressants * concomitant use of drugs known to alter glucose metabolism (i.e., metformin, thiazolidinediones, sulfonylurea receptor agonists and inhibitors of alpha-glucoside hydrolase) or other medications known to alter blood levels being tested in this study * inability to provide the requested fasting blood sample * pregnancy * menopause * alcohol dependency (as determined by cage screening questionnaire); (8) inability to provide informed consent * previous diagnosis or treatment for any hematologic-oncologic disorder * history or current treatment for an eating disorder * current treatment for weight loss * history of bariatric surgery * history of neurosurgical procedure * participation in another clinical trial involving an investigational drug * history of psychiatric disorder, which in the opinion of the investigator would affect the conduct of the proposed trial * age younger than 18 or older than 35 at the time of recruitment * weight that exceeds the capacity of equipment used for weight measurements.

Keywords: metabolic syndrome obesity genetic risk markers single nucleotide polymorphisms young adults fitness testing