Cardiovascular
Mixture Effects of Adolescent Metabolic Profiles on Serum Uric Acid in Early Adulthood: Evidence from the Ewha Birth and Growth Cohort Seunghee Jun* Seunghee Jun Jun Jun Jun Jun 1)Department of Preventive Medicine, Ewha Womans University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea, 2)Graduate Program in System Health Science and Engineering, Ewha Womans University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea
Background: Higher uric acid levels in young adulthood have been associated with future cardiovascular events, have been correlated with metabolic syndrome components. During adolescence, metabolic disturbances tend to cluster and are highly interrelated, so single-marker approaches may not adequately capture the overall burden of risk. However, prior studies evaluated associations cross-sectionally or focused on individual markers, leaving limited evidence on the joint impact of an overall adolescent metabolic profile on uric acid levels in early adulthood. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the combined effect of an adolescent metabolic profile on uric acid levels in early adulthood.
Methods: The study included 164 participants from the Ewha Birth and Growth Cohort who completed follow-up assessments at ages 13–15 and 19. An adolescent metabolic profiles mixture was defined using waist circumference, BMI, systolic/diastolic blood pressure, fasting glucose, total cholesterol (TC), TG, and HDL-C (reverse-coded so that lower HDL-C indicated higher risk). Serum uric acid (SUA) at age 19 served as the outcome. Mixture effects were estimated using quantile g-computation (qgcomp) and Bayesian kernel machine regression (BKMR).
Results: Mean SUA at age 19 was 5.94±1.51 mg/dL and was higher in boys than girls (p<0.001). In qgcomp analyses, a higher adolescent metabolic mixture was associated with higher SUA in crude and adjusted models (adjusted β=0.54 mg/dL; 95%CI 0.17–0.91). Positive weights were observed for HDL-C, TC, and BMI, whereas DBP and log TG received the largest negative weights. Consistent with the qgcomp findings, BKMR showed a smiliar increasing overall mixture–SUA pattern at higher joint exposure levels.
Conclusions: A higher adolescent metabolic risk profile was prospectively associated with higher SUA at age 19, highlighting adolescence as a potential window for integrated metabolic risk profiling to inform early-adulthood monitoring and prevention.
