Table 1.
Characteristics of the study population.a
Figure 1.
Age, body composition and sulfur amino acids.
Dose-response curves (solid lines) with 95% confidence intervals (shaded area) for the association of age with body composition parameters (A) and with plasma concentrations (µmol/L) of methionine, tHcy (total homocysteine), tCys (total cysteine) and tGSH (total glutathione). Figures were constructed using generalized additive regression models in R (see Methods section for details). At approximately mean exposure of the independent variable, the model generates a reference value of zero for the dependent variable. P-values and correlation coefficients were obtained from corresponding Pearson correlation analysis.
Table 2.
Correlations among the sulfur amino acids and body composition.a
Figure 2.
Association of tCys with body fat%.
Dose-response curves (solid lines) with 95% confidence intervals (shaded area) for the association of plasma tCys with body fat% in normal weight (CDC-BMI percentile <85th; N = 288) and overweight/obese (CDC BMI percentile ≥85th; N = 696) children and adolescents after adjustment for age and gender. P-values and partial correlation coefficients were obtained from corresponding linear regression analysis. Data is shown only for the 2.5th–97.5th percentiles of tCys for each group.
Figure 3.
Odds ratios for overweight, obesity and insulin resistance according to plasma total cysteine.
A: Age and gender-adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals for overweight (white bars) and obesity (grey bars) according to quartiles of plasma total cysteine (tCys). B: Age and gender-adjusted odds ratios for insulin resistance (defined as HOMA-IR index >3.16) by quartiles of plasma tCys, with (grey bars) and without (white bars) adjustment for body fat%. *P≤0.001.
Table 3.
Association of plasma tCys with circulating inflammatory markers, adipokines and insulin-resistance-related parameters.a