Serum Vitamin A Status is Associated with Obesity and the Metabolic Syndrome Among School-age Children in Chongqing, China

The aim of our study was to examine the association of vitamin A status with obesity and the metabolic syndrome (MS) in school-age children in Chongqing, China. A cross-sectional study was conducted of 1,928 children aged 7~11 years from 5 schools in Chongqing, China. Body height, weight, waist circumference (WC) and blood pressure were measured. Blood glucose, lipids and vitamin A were determined. Overall prevalences for overweight, obesity and MS were 10.1%, 6.7% and 3.5%, respectively. There were 274 (14.2%) marginally vitamin A deficient (MVAD) children and 53 (2.8%) vitamin A deficient (VAD) children, respectively. Serum vitamin A in the obese group was significantly lower than in the overweight and normal weight groups (p<0.001). Body mass index (BMI), WC, high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and glucose were strongly associated with vitamin A status (p<0.05). In a separate model adjusted for age and sex, compared with normal children, participants with obesity had a significantly higher risk of having vitamin A insufficiency (<=1.05 μmol/L) (OR: 2.37; 95% CI: 1.59, 3.55) (p<0.001), and participants with MS had a 1.99-fold (95% CI: 1.14, 3.47) greater risk of having vitamin A insufficiency (p=0.016), while participants with VAD had significantly higher risk of having MS (OR: 3.82; 95% CI: 1.44, 10.2) (p=0.007). Vitamin A insufficiency among Chongqing urban school-age children was found to be a severe health problem, significantly associated with obesity, hypertriglyceridemia and MS.