Healthy eating and activity reverse aging marker in kids with obesity, Stanford Medicine-led study finds | News Center

Children lost weight during the six-month intervention, with their mean BMI decreasing by about one unit. Their waist circumference and triceps skinfold thickness also decreased. By one year after the program ended, these changes were partially reversed. (At the conclusion of the six-month intervention, participants had been encouraged to maintain their lifestyle changes, but some degree of returning to old habits is common after a weight-loss program ends, the scientists noted.)

From baseline to the end of the six-month program, the children’s average telomere length increased significantly. Over the following year, when their healthful habits and BMI were starting to reverse, the change in the average telomere length reversed. The fact that the researchers followed the same children over three points in time renders the result more convincing, they said.

“Most studies of telomeres have compared older people with younger ones, or sicker people with healthier people, at a single point in time,” Robinson said. “Very few of these studies have followed people over time, especially children.”

Average telomere length changed independently of a variety of other measures, including social, psychological, behavioral and physiological markers, the researchers found. This suggests that telomere length may be a sensitive biomarker for the metabolic benefits of adopting healthy dietary and physical activity patterns, they said. Having a better way to measure these benefits could help motivate people who are trying to become healthier, and could reduce fixation on weight alone, which some people find stigmatizing rather than motivating.

“Telomere length seems to be a unique measure that is not just reflecting other changes we saw, which is why it may be a useful biomarker,” Robinson said, adding that while future studies are needed for confirmation, “we think it is a measure that could go beyond BMI, blood glucose and blood lipids.”

BMI — a height-to-weight ratio — is a useful measure but has been criticized for not always accurately reflecting individuals’ health status, the scientists noted.

“I think that getting to why obesity matters in a molecular way will help us focus on what matters for health, and what resources people need to be healthier,” Rehkopf said. 

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco contributed to the study.

The research was supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (grant R01 HL096015), the Stanford Clinical and Translational Science Award to Spectrum (grant ULI TR001085) from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, the Stanford Maternal and Child Health Research Institute, and the Department of Pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine.