Childhood obesity: evidence of an association between plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 levels and visceral adiposity.

Background: Plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) has been considered as a cardiovascular risk factor, mainly because of its strong association with insulin resistance.

Methods: To detect independent predictors of circulating PAI-1 levels in obese pediatric patients, we evaluated 86 subjects (mean age 10.7 +/- 2.