ORIGINAL ARTICLE Impact of Unhealthy Lifestyle Behaviors and Obesity on Cholesteryl Ester Transfer Protein Among Adolescent Males Valeria Hirschler, a Tomas Mero~ no, b Gustavo Maccallini, a Leonardo Gomez Rosso, b Claudio Aranda, a and Fernando Brites b a Durand Hospital, Buenos Aires, Argentina b Laboratory of Lipids and Lipoproteins, Department of Clinical Biochemistry, School of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, INFIBIOC, UBA, CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina Received for publication August 26, 2010; accepted November 22, 2010 (ARCMED-D-10-00418). Background and Aims. Cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) has been proposed to be associated with high risk of cardiovascular disease. Increased CETP activity was previ- ously reported in obese adults, although its association with lifestyle behaviors has not been assessed in healthy adolescents. We undertook this study to determine the associa- tion between CETP activity and overweight/obesity, insulin resistance markers, compo- nents of the metabolic syndrome and lifestyle behaviors in healthy adolescent males. Methods. Data were collected from 164 adolescents from an amateur rugby club. Body mass index (BMI), blood pressure (BP), Tanner stages, lipids, glucose, insulin and CETP activity were measured. Questionnaires for daily intake of breakfast, sweet drinks, milk, and hours of TV watching were completed. Results. About 26% of the adolescents were obese and 23% overweight. The prevalence of metabolic syndrome was 6.7%. CETP activity was higher in obese than in normal and overweight adolescents (174 Æ 35, 141 Æ 30, and 149 Æ 38%/ml/min, respectively; p !0.001). Univariate correlations showed an inverse association between CETP and HDL-C (r 5 À0.43; p 5 0.018) and positive ones with BMI (r 5 0.38; p 5 0.007), systolic BP (r 5 0.20; p !0.01) triglycerides (r 5 0.40; p 5 0.001), LDL-C (r 5 0.46; p !0.001), TV watching O2 h/day (r 5 0.17; p 0.02), and milk intake O3 glasses/day (r 5 0.16; p 5 0.03). Multivariate analysis showed that triglycerides, LDL-C, HDL-C, TV watching O2 h/day, milk intake O3 glasses/day and BMI were significant independent predictors for CETP (R 2 5 0.41). Conclusions. Unhealthy lifestyle habits such as TV watching O2 h daily and milk intake higher than three glasses per day and the increase in BMI were shown to be closely asso- ciated with high CETP activity in apparently healthy adolescent males. Future longitu- dinal studies should be performed to confirm these findings. Ó 2011 IMSS. Published by Elsevier Inc. Key Words: Obesity, Lipid profile, Lifestyle behaviors, CETP, Atherosclerosis, Adolescent males. Introduction The dramatic increase in the prevalence of childhood over- weight and obesity is related to comorbidities such as meta- bolic syndrome (MetS) and early atherosclerosis (1,2). The widespread increase in obesity rates has been too rapid to consider genetic factors as the primary cause and, therefore, changes in young people’s lifestyle habits have been the focus of most discussions (3). Childhood obesity is a major public health problem worldwide. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analyzed results from the National Health and Nutri- tion Examination Survey (NHANES) for 1999e2006 and showed that 32% of youths aged 12e19 years had a high body mass index (BMI) (4). Moreover, the prevalence of overweight/obesity among school children in Argentina aged 6e14 years was 33% (5), very similar to the alarming Address reprint requests to: Valeria Hirschler, Durand Hospital, Maipu 812 5 M. Buenos Aires, 1006 Argentina; Phone: 54-11-4809-0363; FAX: 54-11-4893-1647; E-mail: vhirschler@intramed.net 0188-4409/$ - see front matter. Copyright Ó 2011 IMSS. Published by Elsevier Inc. doi: 10.1016/j.arcmed.2010.11.009 Archives of Medical Research 42 (2011) 53e59