Cheng Yanan, Department of Clinical Laboratory, Strategic Support Force Characteristic Medical Center (formerly 306 Hospital).
Edited by Liu Yan/Cui Yan, Medical Science Popularization Center
The healthy growth of children has always been highly concerned by parents, especially their physiological development and height growth, which makes every parent worry. With the improvement of living standards, the average height of teenagers in mainland China has also continued to grow. If the height is significantly short compared to their peers, it is easy to affect their children's self-confidence, which leads many parents to fall into "height anxiety". Below, let's talk about three indicators that affect children's height, so as to help you understand the growth and development of children!
Three indicators to determine children's growth and development
(1) Growth hormone: Growth hormone (GH) is a polypeptide hormone, mainly secreted by the anterior pituitary gland, on the one hand, growth hormone directly acts on human bones to promote bone growth, thereby promoting the growth of the human body, on the other hand, through the liver GH receptor to promote the synthesis of liver IGF-1, thereby promoting bone growth, which is the so-called "pituitary gland elf".
(2) Insulin-like growth factor 1: Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) is a single-chain polypeptide containing 3 disulfide bonds, with a molecular weight of about 7649 Da, and insulin-like growth factor 1 plays an important role in the development of the nervous system as a single-chain polypeptide with insulin-like synthesis and growth promotion functions. Insulin-like growth factor-1 has a negative feedback effect on pituitary growth hormone release, and serum growth hormone levels are basically consistent with serum growth hormone levels within 24 hours.
(3) Insulin-like growth factor-binding protein-3: Insulin-like growth factor-binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3) is an important insulin-like growth factor-binding protein. IGFBP-3 is composed of 264 amino acids with a molecular weight of 29 kD, of which 95% of the insulin-like growth factor binds to insulin-like growth factor binding protein 3, making it the main carrier of circulating insulin-like growth factors, and the role of binding proteins is to prolong the half-life of insulin-like growth factors in the blood.
Monitoring significance of the three indicators
Insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) is an important biological effector that not only has an important impact on children's growth and development, but also has an important impact on endocrine metabolism in adulthood. Under normal circumstances, GH is secreted in a pulse, has a circadian rhythm, is affected by various factors such as diet, exercise, stress, blood glucose, etc., and has a half-life of about 20 minutes, the plasma clearance rate is fast, and the measurement results fluctuate greatly.
Changes in IGF-1 are parallel to growth hormone release, with a gradual increase in secretion from birth, peaking at age 20 and then decreasing with age, with lower levels in neonates and the elderly. Insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), in contrast to GH, is a non-pulsatile secretion, it is a sensitive biomarker, not affected by diurnal variation, and is important in the diagnosis of growth hormone abnormalities. Insulin-like growth factor-binding protein-3 has an adjunct role in the evaluation of growth and development, and it is dependent on growth hormone (GH) and can therefore be used to evaluate growth hormone secretion. Insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGFBPs) mainly exist in the blood, and IGFBP-3 (more than 95%) is the main component, which has the role of transporting and regulating IGF-1, and is an important index to measure the function of the GH-IGF axis. The secretion mode of these two cells is different from that of GH, both are non-pulse secretion, have a long half-life, small diurnal fluctuations, and relatively stable concentrations in the blood circulation, and IGF-1 and IGFBP-3 have high diagnostic value in children from 5 years old to prepuberty.
Combined with growth hormone (GH) measurement, it can diagnose abnormal growth and development in children, evaluate pituitary function, etc., and the concentration of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) is not related to human physiological rhythm, which can be corroborated with GH stimulation test and complement each other. Insulin-like growth factor-1 may be an indicator of growth hormone secretion, and normal plasma or serum IGF-1 levels can be a strong basis for diagnosing growth hormone deficiency, and low insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) levels may be a sign of growth hormone deficiency.
Children's growth and development is a long-term process, if you want to find out the problems of children in the process of growth in time, you need to pay close attention to children's growth indicators, so that you can make timely adjustments and provide a foundation for children's healthy development.
(The picture comes from the Internet)