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. 2022 May 17;22(1):289.
doi: 10.1186/s12887-022-03337-8.

Hypertension in obese children is associated with vitamin D deficiency and serotonin dysregulation

Katarína Krivošíková  1 , Zora Krivošíková  2 , Ladislava Wsolová  3 , Tomáš Seeman  4   5 , Ľudmila Podracká  6
Affiliations

Hypertension in obese children is associated with vitamin D deficiency and serotonin dysregulation

Katarína Krivošíková et al. BMC Pediatr. .

Abstract

Background: Obesity and hypertension represent serious health issues affecting the pediatric population with increasing prevalence. Hypovitaminosis D has been suggested to be associated with arterial hypertension. Serotonin by modulating nitric oxide synthase affect blood pressure regulation. The biological mechanism by which vitamin D specifically regulates serotonin synthesis was recently described. The aim of this paper is to determine the associations between vitamin D, serotonin, and blood pressure in obese children.

Methods: One hundred and seventy-one children were enrolled in the prospective cross-sectional study. Two groups of children divided according to body mass index status to obese (BMI ≥95th percentile; n = 120) and non-obese (n = 51) were set. All children underwent office and ambulatory blood pressure monitoring and biochemical analysis of vitamin D and serotonin. Data on fasting glucose, insulin, HOMA, uric acid, and complete lipid profile were obtained in obese children.

Results: Hypertension was found only in the group of obese children. Compared to the control group, obese children had lower vitamin D and serotonin, especially in winter. The vitamin D seasonality and BMI-SDS were shown as the most significant predictors of systolic blood pressure changes, while diastolic blood pressure was predicted mostly by insulin and serotonin. The presence of hypertension and high-normal blood pressure in obese children was most significantly affected by vitamin D deficiency and increased BMI-SDS.

Conclusions: Dysregulation of vitamin D and serotonin can pose a risk of the onset and development of hypertension in obese children; therefore, their optimization together with reducing body weight may improve the long-term cardiovascular health of these children.

Keywords: Children; Hypertension; Obesity; Serotonin; Vitamin D.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Vitamin D and Serotonin levels depending on Vitamin D seasonality and study group. a General linear model for 25(OH) D as a response variable and vitamin D seasonality and obesity as predictors. b General linear model for serotonin as a response variable and vitamin D seasonality and obesity as predictors
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Multivariable analysis of the relationship between SBP-SDS and studied variables. SBP-SDS: systolic blood pressure standard deviation score, BMI-SDS: body mass index standard deviation score
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Multivariable analysis of the relationship between DBP-SDS and studied variables. DBP-SDS: diastolic blood pressure standard deviation score
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Multivariable analysis of the relationship between the prevalence of hypertension and studied variables. BP: blood pressure; SDS-BMI: body mass index standard deviation score
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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