Luis A Moreno

University of Zaragoza | UNIZAR · Faculty of Health Sciences (ENFEZ)

We investigated which determinants (socioeconomic, early life factors, body composition changes, fitness changes and/or physical activity changes) best predicted longitudinal outcomes in cardiometabolic risk profile (Z-score change) in adolescents with OW/OB who underwent a 13-month multidisciplinary lifestyle intervention. A total of 165 adolescen...

Objective The aim of the current study is to analyze the associations between breakfast consumption and adherence to diet quality index (DQI) and Mediterranean Diet Score (MDS) in European adolescents. Methods A multinational cross-sectional study was carried out in 1804 adolescents aged 12.5–17.5 years. The Food Choices and Preferences questionna...

Background: Living in single parent and blended families or as an only child-compared to living in two-parent biological families or with siblings, respectively-is associated with a higher body mass index (BMI) in cross-sectional studies. However, longitudinal research addressing the children's BMI in this context is scarce. Further, little is kno...

Adolescence is recognized as a time of rapid physiological and behavioral change. In this transition, eating behavior is still being formed and remains an integral part of a person’s lifestyle throughout his or her life. This study aims to assess eating behavior and associations with food intake in European adolescents. We included 2194 adolescents...

Purpose of review: Approximately 370 million children and adolescents worldwide showed overweight or obesity in 2016. The risk of developing severe comorbidities depends on the age of onset and the duration of obesity. This review discusses available methodologies to detect excess body fat in children as well as the early life factors that predict...

Objective The current study aims to investigate the association of diet quality with fasting glycemia, insulinemia and insulin resistance in a cross-sectional sample of adults from high-risk families for Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) from 6 European countries, taking into account their socioeconomic status (SES). Methods Baseline data from non-d...

Objectives Low sleep quality and duration are associated with the development of overweight and obesity. This link is discussed to result from an unfavorable selection of food items after sleep deprivation on the one hand; on the other hand, fatigue also reduces the willingness to engage in physical activity. Furthermore, sleep duration and quality...

Knowing the extent to which mental well-being and stressful life events during adolescence contribute to personality characteristics related to risk-taking behaviors, such as emotion-driven impulsiveness, is highly relevant for the development of health promotion measures. This study examined whether psychosocial well-being and different stressful...

The study purpose was to assess the impact of birth weight and breastfeeding duration on physical fitness components. Study participants were 985 adolescents boys and 1246 girls (12.5–17.5 years) participating in the HELENA study. Standardised physical fitness procedures included: cardio-respiratory fitness, flexibility, upper body muscular strengt...

Parental health is associated with children’s health and lifestyles. Thus, the aim of the present study was to assess lifestyle behaviours of children of parents with insulin resistance (IR) and at risk of type 2 diabetes. 2117 European families from the Feel4Diabetes-study were identified as being at risk for diabetes with the FINDRISC questionnai...

A family meal is defined as a meal consumed together by the members of a family or by having ≥ 1 parent present during a meal. The frequency of family meals has been associated with healthier food intake patterns in both children and parents. This study aimed to investigate in families at high risk for developing type 2 diabetes across Europe the a...

Introduction: Food parenting practices, behaviours, and food availability at home are associated with children's food choices; however, these associations have been mainly studied for each parenting practice separately and focused mostly on healthy populations. Aim: To identify patterns of parenting practices (including data regarding food avail...

Purpose This study aimed to investigate the association of breakfast consumption frequency (BCF) with glycemic control indices in a cross-sectional sample of adults from families at high risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), exploring the role of sex and socioeconomic status (SES). Methods In 2370 adults (40.8 ± 5.6 years) from 6 European coun...

1) Investigar la asociación entre algunos factores de la edad temprana con masa corporal magra (MCM) y fuerza de extremidades en una cohorte de niños españoles. Se observaron asociaciones positivas en niñas entre tabaquismo materno (β=0.163;β=0.238), EG (β=0.162; β=0.230) y PN (β=0.170; β=0.276) con IMLG/IMCMT, respectivamente. En niños, IMC matern...

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of mortality worldwide. These diseases originate in childhood, and a better understanding of their early determinants and risk factors would allow better prevention. The BELINDA (BEtter LIfe by Nutrition During Adulthood) study is a 10–14-year follow-up of the HEalthy Lifestyle in Europe by Nutrition in...

We aimed to describe differences in taste sensitivity in children according to age across 7- to 11-year-old children from eight European countries. We further compared taste sensitivity between boys vs. girls and under-/normal weight vs. overweight/obese children. Within the European multicentre IDEFICS (Identification and prevention of dietary and...

Due to the absence of easily applicable cut‐off points to determine high blood pressure or hypertension in children, as in the adult population, blood pressure is rarely measured in the pediatrician's clinical routine. This has led to an underdiagnosis of high blood pressure or hypertension in children. For this reason, the present study evaluate t...

Background and Aims This study aims to examine associations of food portion sizes (PS) with markers of insulin resistance (IR) and clustered of metabolic risk score in European adolescents. Methods 495 adolescents (53.5% females) from the HELENA study were included. The association between PS from food groups and HOMA-IR index, VO2 max, and metabo...

The Feel4Diabetes study recruited 12,193 children (age: 8.20 ±1.01 years) and their parents from six European countries as part of the broader attempt to prevent type 2 diabetes. The current work collected data pre-intervention to identify the prevalence of childhood obesity by country and describe its association with socio-demographic characteris...

One of the current main public health problems is the prevalence of obesity in children. Unhealthy lifestyle behaviors such as poor dietary habits, high sedentary screen time (SST), and low levels of physical activity (PA) have a strong tendency to track from childhood into adulthood. The aim of this manuscript is to assess the association between...

Early life is critical for the programming of body composition. The literature links perinatal factors with fat mass development and its future effects (e.g., obesity); however, little evidence exists between early life factors and lean body mass (LBM). This study follows up on a cohort of 416 Spanish children at ages six to eight, previously evalu...

Objective This study aimed to investigate the mediating role of FPPs, including home availability of different types of foods and drinks, parental modelling of fruit intake, permissiveness, and the use of food as a reward, in the relationship between parental education and dietary intake in European children. Design Single mediation analyses were...

Background: The family environment influences food consumption and behaviours, which impact adolescent's eating habits, diet and health. Young individuals who frequently eat family meals are less likely to develop risk- and behaviour-related outcomes as obesity. Aim: To assess the relationship between the family meal environment and food and mac...

Background/objectives To provide age- and sex-specific percentile curves of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) by determinants from 3-<15 year-old European children, and to analyse how modifiable determinants influence 25(OH)D. Subjects/methods Serum samples were collected from children of eight European countries participating in the multicenter...

Increasing data suggest that overnutrition-induced obesity may trigger an inflammatory process in adipose tissue and upturn in the innate immune system. Numerous players have been involved in governing the inflammatory response, including epigenetics. Among epigenetic players, miRNAs are emerging as crucial regulators of immune cell development, im...

Background and Aims Prediabetes and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) are global health problems with worldwide epidemic proportions triggered by a wide range of risk factors. The current work aimed to identify the predominant correlates of prediabetes and T2DM among a variety of socio-demographic, anthropometric and lifestyle indices, in a large sam...

Background and Aim The association of a metabolically healthy status with the practice of physical activity (PA) remains unclear. Sedentarism and low PA have been linked to increased cardiometabolic risk. The aim of this study was to evaluate the PA levels in metabolically healthy (MH) or unhealthy (MU) prepubertal children with or without overweig...

Background and aims (Poly)phenols might contribute to prevent cardiovascular disease, but limited prospective studies exist among adolescents. This study aimed to evaluate within-subject longitudinal changes in (poly)phenols intakes and food group contributors while also exploring the association with metabolic syndrome risk (MetS) during 10 years...

Childhood obesity and metabolic syndrome (MetS) are multifactorial diseases influenced by genetic and environmental factors. The Mediterranean Diet (MD) seems to modulate the genetic predisposition to obesity or MetS in European adults. The FTO gene has also been shown to have an impact on the MD benefits to avoid obesity or MetS. Since these inter...

PurposeUnderstanding whole-grain intake and its associated factors is essential to tackle the double burden of malnutrition faced by Latin American countries. This study aimed to characterize total and whole grain intake in Latin American countries and to investigate foods contributing to these intake in the region. Methods Data were obtained from...

Introduction et but de l’étude La condition physique est un marqueur de santé corrélé à la survenue de plusieurs maladies chroniques tout au long de la vie. L’influence de facteurs périnataux sur la condition physique peut être détectée dès l’adolescence. L’objectif de l’étude était d’évaluer l’effet du poids de naissance et de l’allaitement matern...

Introduction et but de l’étude La transition de l’adolescence à l’âge adulte comprend plusieurs changements majeurs, notamment l’indépendance, le statut scolaire et professionnel, les nouveaux centres d’intérêts et rôles sociaux. Elle est associée à une modification des habitudes de vie, notamment l’activité physique (AP) qui est un des déterminant...

Introduction et but de l’étude Les maladies cardiovasculaires constituent la première cause de mortalité à l’échelle européenne et mondiale. Leur développement débute tôt dans la vie, modulé par des profils alimentaires et d’activité physique qu’il est nécessaire d’identifier dès l’adolescence. L’étude BELINDA (Better Life by Nutrition During Adult...

Research in bone health during childhood is limited and important to prevent future diseases, particularly, osteoporosis. Bone parameters using DXA and pQCT in 295 Spanish children were evaluated and we found a benefit of meeting the World Health Organization physical activity recommendations in bone composition in childhood.PurposeTo investigate t...

Diversos estudios epidemiológicos y de intervención apuntan a una asociación fuerte y consistente entre la ingesta excesiva de azúcares y el riesgo de desarrollar caries dentales y enfermedades crónicas no transmisibles. El objetivo fue describir los 10 principales alimentos que contribuyen a la ingesta de azúcares añadidos en muestras representati...

Background In recent years, the exciting emergence of circulating miRNAs as stable, reproducible, and consistent among individuals has opened a promising research opportunity for the detection of non-invasive biomarkers. A firm connection has been established between circulating miRNAs and glycaemic as well as metabolic homeostasis, showing that le...

Childhood obesity has been related to metabolic syndrome and low-grade chronic inflammation. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of physical activity intensities and practice on inflammation, endothelial damage, and cardiometabolic risk factors in children. There were 513 participants, aged 6–14 years, recruited for the study. Physical activity...

The global adoption of predominantly plant-based sustainable healthy diets will help reduce the risk of obesity- and malnutrition-related non-communicable diseases while protecting the future health of our planet. This review examines the benefits and limitations of different types of plant-based diets in terms of health and nutrition, affordabilit...

Background Physical activity (PA) has acquired a significant relevance due to the health benefits associated with its practice. Accelerometers are an effective tool to assess PA; however, the diversity of cut-off points used to define different PA intensities through accelerometry could interfere in the interpretation of the findings among studies....

Obesity in children and adolescents is a public health problem and diet can play a major role in this condition. We aimed to identify sex-specific dietary patterns (DP) and to evaluate the association with overweight/obesity in European adolescents. We conducted a cross-sectional analysis with 2327 adolescents aged between 12.5 to 17.5 years from a...

Background: Studies on childhood obesity mainly focus on the genetic component and on the lifestyle that may be associated with the development of obesity. However, the study of perinatal factors in their programming effect towards future obesity in children or adults is somewhat more recent and there are still mechanisms to be disentangled. Summ...

Purpose Subclinical systemic inflammation may lead to development of type 2 diabetes, but there has been no investigation into its relationship with early progression of glycemic deterioration and insulin resistance, especially in younger population. In this study we assess longitudinal associations of pro- and anti-inflammatory markers with marker...

Background Many genes and molecular pathways are associated with obesity, but the mechanisms from genes to obesity are less well known. Eating behaviors represent a plausible pathway, but because the relationships of eating behaviors and obesity may be bi-directional, it remains challenging to resolve the underlying pathways. A longitudinal approac...

Childhood obesity is one of the most pressing global public health issues, with rates increasing fastest in countries at low levels of income. Obesity occurring during childhood is likely to persist throughout the life course, and it is a cause of increased disease risk from the early years of life. This supplement is the result of collaborations i...

The present study investigated the associations between physical activity (PA) and physical fitness (PF) with lean body mass (LBM) and evaluated whether PA mediates the association between PF and LBM. 279 children (150 boys) aged 7.5 ± 0.3 years participated in the study. PA was assessed by accelerometry and PF with handgrip and the standing long j...

The EAT-Lancet Commission has proposed a model diet to improve the health of human beings and that of the planet. Recently, we proposed the Planetary Health Diet Index (PHDI) to assess adherence of the population to this model diet. In this study, we aimed to evaluate adherence to the PHDI and obesity outcomes using baseline data from 14,515 partic...

Background Media use may influence metabolic syndrome (MetS) in children. Yet, longitudinal studies are scarce. This study aims to evaluate the longitudinal association of childhood digital media (DM) use trajectories with MetS and its components. Methods Children from Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain and Sweden participati...

Background: The association between high fructose consumption and elevated blood pressure continues to be controversial, especially in adolescence. The aim of this study was to assess the association between fructose consumption and elevated blood pressure in an European adolescent population. Methods: A total of 1733 adolescents (mean ± SD age:...

The health-transitions humans have delivered during the 20th Century associated with the nutrition is that from undernutrition to obesity, which perseveres in the current years of the 21st Century. Energy intake (EI) is a contributing factor and therefore a fascination in nutritional sciences. However, energy expenditure (EE) has not been usually c...

The benefits of breastfeeding (BF) include risk reduction of later overweight and obesity. We aimed to analyse the association between breastfeeding practices and overweight/obesity among preschool children participating in the ToyBox study. Data from children in the six countries, participating in the ToyBox-study (Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Gree...

Background Since only few longitudinal studies with appropriate study designs investigated the relationship between objectively measured physical activity (PA) and overweight, the degree PA can prevent excess weight gain in children, remains unclear. Moreover, evidence is limited on how childhood overweight determines PA during childhood. Therefore...

The aim was to identify different dietary and physical activity (PA) patterns in 5- to 14-year-old children with a high prevalence of overweight and obesity using cluster analysis based on their adherence to the Spanish Society of Community Nutrition dietary guidelines and levels of PA, and to determine their associations with age, sex, body compos...

In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) published 24 h movement behavior guidelines for preschoolers with recommendations for physical activity (PA), screen time (ST), and sleep. The present study investigated the proportion of preschoolers complying with these guidelines (on a total week, weekdays and weekend days), and the associations with...

Background Physical activity (PA) during childhood is important for preventing future metabolic syndrome (MetS). To examine the relationship between PA and MetS in more detail, accurate measures of PA are needed. Previous studies have only utilized a small part of the information available from accelerometer measured PA. This study investigated the...

Background and Aims Food processing has been indicated as a factor capable of negatively affecting the global food system, including the profile of consumers’ diets. The objectives of the present study were to provide a description of the consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) in the large population of children, adolescents and adults from ei...

Background Childhood obesity is a complex multifaceted condition, which is influenced by genetics, environmental factors, and their interaction. However, these interactions have mainly been studied in twin studies and evidence from population-based cohorts is limited. Here, we analyze the interaction of an obesity-related genome-wide polygenic risk...

Background Metabolic risk and inflammatory state have an early life onset and are associated with future diseases. Objectives To assess the association between metabolic syndrome (MetS) and metabolic health with high-sensitive C-reactive protein (hsCRP), cross-sectionally and longitudinally, in children. Methods 2913 European children (2-10 years...

The EAT-Lancet Commission has proposed a planetary health diet. We propose the development of the Planetary Health Diet Index (PHDI) based on this proposed reference diet. We used baseline dietary data obtained through a 114-item FFQ from 14,779 participants of the Longitudinal Study on Adult Health, a multicenter cohort study conducted in Brazil....

Background Short sleep duration has been found to be associated with a higher risk for overweight and obesity. However, previous studies have mainly relied on subjective measures of sleep duration and other sleep characteristics (e.g. quality, timing) have often been neglected. Therefore, we aimed to investigate associations between several, mainly...

Most of the studies analyzing the effect of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) on children’s health do not contain information on early stages or do not use accurate methods. We investigated the association between PA and body composition using objective methods, perinatal data, lifestyle behaviors, and World Health Organization (WHO) ph...

Food parenting practices (FPPs) have an important role in shaping children’s dietary behaviors. This study aimed to investigate cross-sectional and longitudinal associations over a twoyear follow-up between FPP and dietary intake and compliance with current recommendations in 6- to 11-year-old European children. A total of 2967 parent-child dyads f...

The aim of this study was to investigate the association of endothelial lipase gene (LIPG) polymorphisms with cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in adolescents and their interaction with physical activity. Six polymorphisms of LIPG were genotyped in 1057 European adolescents (12–18 years old) enrolled in the Healthy Lifestyle in Europe by Nu...

We evaluated the association between intake of total polyphenols, polyphenol classes and the 10 most consumed individual polyphenols with serum total antioxidant capacity (TAC) in 749 European adolescents (53% girls; 15% overweight; 12.5–17.5 years-old) from the cross-sectional HELENA study of 2006–2007. Dietary polyphenol intake was calculated fro...