Sadly, many children today weigh too much and one in six are obese. Carrying too much weight increases the percentage of fat tissue more than its boosts lean body mass and overweight increases kidney size. All these factors have an impact on how a child’s body takes up medicine, where it is retained, and how quickly it is excreted. Yet, very few medicines prescribed today have dosing information for overweight children.
Simply using weight to calculate the correct dose of medicine for a child could result in a higher dose than needed for an overweight child. This is a dilemma. Dr. Janelle D. Vaughns, director of bariatric anesthesia at Children’s National Health System is urging regulators, clinicians and pharmaceutical companies to consider enrolling more overweight and obese children in clinical trials to be sure the next generation of drugs will be correctly prescribed for these children.
