Relationships between emerging cardiovascular risk factors, z-BMI, waist circumference and body adiposity index (BAI) on adolescents.

OBJECTIVE: The body adiposity index (BAI) has been recently proposed as an alternative index to body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) to evaluate adiposity in adults, with special focus on its ability to discriminate gender specificities on adiposity. Endothelial dysfunction, circulating endothelial cells (CECs), endothelin-1 and adipocytokines are all related to atherosclerosis and nowadays considered as markers of emerging cardiovascular (CV) risk. This study aimed to determine in normal weight and obese adolescents which measures of body composition (BAI and z-BMI) or distribution (WC) correlate better with emerging CV risk markers. PATIENTS: Forty adolescents were selected according to BMI: normal weight (n = 20; 7 girls/13 boys, 14·7 ± 1·4 years, 53·4 ± 6·0 kg, z-BMI 0·6 ± 0·1) and obese ones (n = 20; 13 girls/7 boys, 14·1± 1·0 years, 86·7 ± 11·5 kg, z-BMI 2·7 ± 0·4). MEASUREMENTS: Body fat and fat mass were measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Non-nutritive skin microvascular reactivity was evaluated by laser Doppler flowmetry with iontophoretic release of vasoactive drugs. Activated CECs were assessed by flow cytometric analysis. RESULTS: In adolescents, the measurement of % fat by DXA showed high correlation with BAI (ρ = 0·75, P < 0·0001), z-BMI (r = 0·84, P < 0·0001) and WC (r = 0·83, P < 0·0001). Endothelin-1 and activated CECs did not correlate with any anthropometric measures while adipocytokines expressed variable associations among them. Endothelium-dependent vasodilation showed higher correlation with BAI (r = -0·51, P < 0·0001) compared to z-BMI (r = -0·40, P < 0·001) or WC (r = -0·45, P < 0·001), specially on females. CONCLUSIONS: BAI was associated with emerging CV risk markers in adolescents but further research is needed to evaluate its potential in clinical and epidemiological sets.

Synthesis and antimalarial activity of hydroxyethylpiperazine derivatives.

The antimalarial activity of hydroxyethylpiperazine derivatives, synthesized from the reaction of (2S,3S)Boc-phenylalanine epoxide with benzylpiperazines in good yields (76-96%), has been evaluated in vitro against the Plasmodium falciparum W2 clone (chloroquine resistant). The results show that some compounds have moderate activity against this parasite and none of the active compounds showed cytotoxicity at high concentration (100 microg/ml).