Metabolic Health of Children Born SGA: Influence of parental health, prematurity, genetic polymorphisms and growth hormone treatment

Since 1991 our research group and others have investigated children with short stature who were born small for gestational age (SGA), both before and during treatment with biosynthetic growth hormone (GH). Because of these efforts and the positive results, GH treatment was licensed for short SGA children in 2005. However, many questions remained unanswered, for instance about the association between low birth weight and the risk to develop type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) or cardiovascular disease (CVD) in adulthood and the effect of GH treatment on such associations. This doctoral thesis describes studies that evaluated metabolic and cardiovascular risk factors in short children born SGA and the association of these risk factors with family history, preterm birth, GH treatment, serum insulin-like growth factor binding protein-2 (IGFBP-2) levels and genetic polymorphisms. This first chapter describes definitions, prevalence and etiologies of SGA, and clinical and endocrinological aspects associated with SGA. Finally, the aims of the study and outline of this thesis are described.