Antioxidants and Oxidative Stress in Children: Influence of Puberty and Metabolically Unhealthy Status Rupérez Cano, Azahara Iris Mesa García, María Dolores Anguita-Ruiz, Augusto González Gil, Esther M. Gil Hernández, Ángel Aguilera García, Concepción María Carotenoids Tocopherols Oxidized low-density lipoprotein Inflammatory biomarkers Childhood obesity Metabolically healthy Metabolic syndrome Oxidative stress could help explain the relationship between childhood obesity and a metabolically unhealthy (MU) status. Moreover, puberty could also influence this relationship, since it entails physiological cardiometabolic changes. We aimed to evaluate plasma antioxidants and oxidative stress biomarkers in MU and metabolically healthy (MH) prepubertal and pubertal children and their associations with pro-inflammatory and endothelial damage biomarkers, taking puberty into account. A total of 1444 Spanish children aged 3–17 years (48.9% males, 66% prepubertal, 47.1% with obesity) were recruited. Blood pressure, anthropometric and biochemical parameters were measured, and children were categorized as having a MU or MH status according to risk factors. Retinol, carotenes, tocopherols, total antioxidant capacity (TAC), oxidized low-density lipoprotein and selected pro-inflammatory and endothelial damage biomarkers were analyzed. General linear models adjusted for age, sex, recruitment center and body mass index, partial correlations and stepwise linear regressions were performed. Lower carotenes and tocopherols levels were found in MU than in MH children. Plasma TAC was lower in prepubertal and higher in pubertal children with obesity compared to normal-weight children. Antioxidants and oxidative stress biomarkers showed novel associations with several pro-inflammatory and endothelial damage biomarkers, with pubertal differences, supporting the importance of considering both the antioxidant and oxidative stress status and puberty in the prevention of metabolic diseases in childhood. 2020-09-16T11:19:45Z 2020-09-16T11:19:45Z 2020-07-15 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Rupérez, A. I., Mesa, M. D., Anguita-Ruiz, A., González-Gil, E. M., Vázquez-Cobela, R., Moreno, L. A., ... & Aguilera, C. M. (2020). Antioxidants and Oxidative Stress in Children: Influence of Puberty and Metabolically Unhealthy Status. Antioxidants, 9(7), 618. [doi:10.3390/antiox9070618] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/63425 doi:10.3390/antiox9070618 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución 3.0 España MDPI