Electrocardiographic and Echocardiographic Findings in Adolescent Overweight and Obese Secondary School Children in Benin City, Nigeria

Aim: To determine the electrocardiography (ECG) and echocardiography findings in adolescent school children.

Study Design: A cross sectional descriptive study.

Place and Duration of Study: Selected secondary school in Benin City, Nigeria. The study was conducted between May and June 2016.

Methods: Subjects were overweight and obese school children from a private secondary school while controls were school children with normal weight. Overweigh and obesity were defined as BMI percentiles between 85th and 95th and >95th percentile respectively. Subjects and controls both had ECG and echocardiography evaluations. Analysis was done with SPSS version 20.0.

Results: Forty nine subjects and 49 controls were recruited. Of the subjects, 21(42.9%) and 28(57.1%) were obese and overweight respectively. Six (12.24%) subjects had chamber enlargement compared to one (2.04%) control, OR = 6.0, p = 0.12). The difference in mean left ventricular mass indexed to height (LVM/ht) of obese subjects 99.81 ± 32.80 g/m, overweight subjects 85.96 ± 20.52 and controls 81.63 ± 15.66 24.25 g/m, was significant, p = 0.0091. The LVM/ht was positively correlated with WC, r = 0.34, p = 0.024 and BMI, r = 0.37, p = 0.013.

Conclusion: Overweight and obesity is associated with increase in LVM and other chamber enlargement. Efforts should be stepped up to prevent overweight and obesity amongst school children for better cardiovascular health.