Dutch researchers investigated how the body mass index (BMI-z) of children and adolescents with Duchenne muscular dystrophy changed over time. For this purpose, they retrospectively studied the clinical records of 159 ambulant and non-ambulant patients, some of whom were receiving long-term corticosteroid therapy. Their study showed that :
- 790 BMI-z scores were analysed against World Health Organisation (WHO) standards,
- 51% of chair patients were above the accepted threshold for obesity, compared to 44% of ambulant patients,
- this increase in weight begins one year (on average) before the loss of walking, hence the interest of early prophylactic measures.
