ArticleEndocrinology, diabetes & metabolism2023
Branched-chain α-keto acids and glutamate/glutamine: Biomarkers of insulin resistance in childhood obesity.
Article in Endocrinology, diabetes & metabolism, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- Proteomic Insights into Childhood Obesity: A Systematic Review of Protein Biomarkers and Advances.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Pooled it
- Association of BCAAs/BCKAs with pancreatic steatosis in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: A cross-sectional study.Journal of diabetes investigation · 2026Article
- Branched chain amino acid metabolism and microbiome in adolescents with obesity during weight loss therapy.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2026Observational
- The Complex Relation of Branched-Chain Amino Acids and Inflammation in the Obesity and Diabetes Context.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2026Review
- Plasma metabolites after 10-weeks of glucose vs fructose-sweetened beverages in subjects with overweight/obesity.Journal of the Endocrine Society · 2026Article
- Cardiac intermediary metabolism in heart failure: substrate use, signalling roles and therapeutic targets.Nature reviews. Cardiology · 2025Review
- Circulating BCKAs are closely associated with adipose tissue insulin resistance in type 2 diabetes.Diabetology & metabolic syndrome · 2025Article
- A High-Fat Diet Induces Epigenetic 1-Carbon Metabolism, Homocystinuria, and Renal-Dependent HFpEF.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Plasma amino acid profiles in pediatric obesity: potential biomarkers for the early assessment of metabolic risk.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2025Article
- Association of Whole Blood Amino Acid and Acylcarnitine Metabolome with Anthropometry and IGF-I Serum Levels in Healthy Children and Adolescents in Germany.Metabolites · 2024Article
- Metabolomics for Clinical Biomarker Discovery and Therapeutic Target Identification.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Sex Differences in Branched-chain Amino Acid and Tryptophan Metabolism and Pathogenesis of Youth-onset Type 2 Diabetes.The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism · 2024Article
- Heterogeneously elevated branched-chain/aromatic amino acids among new-onset type-2 diabetes mellitus patients are potentially skewed diabetes predictors.World journal of diabetes · 2024Article
- Depiction of Branched-Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs) in Diabetes with a Focus on Diabetic Microvascular Complications.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Review
- Amino Acid Profiling of Follicular Fluid in Assisted Reproduction Reveals Important Roles of Several Amino Acids in Patients with Insulin Resistance.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
- Branched-chain α-keto acids and glutamate/glutamine: Biomarkers of insulin resistance in childhood obesity.Endocrinology, diabetes & metabolism · 2023Article
- Total bilirubin and bilirubin-to-triglycerides ratio predict changes in glycated hemoglobin in healthy children.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesInsulin resistance (IR) in adolescents with obesity is associated with a sex-dependent metabolic 'signature' comprising the branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs), glutamate/glutamine, C3/C5 acylcarnitines and uric acid. Here, we compared the levels of branched-chain α-keto acids (BCKAs) and glutamate/glutamine, which are the byproducts of BCAA catabolism and uric acid among adolescents with obesity prior to and following a 6-month lifestyle-intervention program.
methodsFasting plasma samples from 33 adolescents with obesity (16 males, 17 females, aged 12-18 year) were analysed by flow-injection tandem MS and LC-MS/MS. Multiple linear regression models were used to correlate changes in BCKAs, glutamate/glutamine and uric acid with changes in weight and insulin sensitivity as assessed by HOMA-IR, adiponectin and the ratio of triglyceride (TG) to HDL. In predictive models, BCKAs, glutamate/glutamine and uric acid at baseline were used as explanatory variables.
resultsBaseline BCKAs, glutamate/glutamine and uric acid were higher in males than females despite comparable BMI-metrics. Following lifestyle-intervention, α-keto-β-methylvalerate (α-KMV, a metabolic by product of isoleucine) decreased in males but not in females. The ratio of BCKA/BCAA trended lower in males. In the cohort as a whole, BCKAs correlated positively with the ratio of TG to HDL at baseline and HOMA-IR at 6-month-follow-up. Glutamate/glutamine was positively associated with HOMA-IR at baseline and 6-month-follow-up. A reduction in BCKAs was associated with an increase in adiponectin, and those with higher BCKAs at baseline had higher adiponectin levels at 6-month-follow-up. Interestingly those adolescents with higher uric acid levels at baseline had greater reduction in weight.
conclusionsBCKAs and glutamate/glutamine may serve as biomarkers of IR in adolescents with obesity, and uric acid might serve as a predictor of weight loss in response to lifestyle-intervention. Differential regulation of BCAA catabolism in adolescent males and females implicates critical roles for sex steroids in metabolic homeostasis.
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