Abstract
AIMS: To examine the association between relative muscle mass (RMM) and nine risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes (CVD/DM) in U.S. youth. METHODS: We used a sample representative of the U.S. population of youth, aged 8-20 years (NHANES 1999-2004). We compared the prevalence of adverse levels of nine CVD/DM risk factors between youths in the lowest quartile of RMM and their peers in the remaining quartiles, controlling for age, sex, and race/ethnicity. We also examined variations in the adjusted prevalence of these risk factors along the entire range of RMM. RESULTS: The adjusted prevalence of adverse levels of risk factors among youths in the lowest quartile of RMM was significantly higher for seven of the nine risk factors examined compared with their peers in the other quartiles. Over the entire range of RMM, the adjusted prevalence of adverse levels of each of these seven risk factors decreased gradually with increasing RMM values (all p for trend <0.001). CONCLUSIONS: RMM and prevalence of adverse risk factors for CVD/DM are highly and inversely associated in U.S. youth. Among youth with low RMM, the risk of these chronic diseases could be significantly high later in life.