Fitness May Not Affect Cardiometabolic Risk Among Adolescents

Cardiorespiratory fitness only partially improves cardiometabolic risk factors in adolescents, according to the findings of a recent study.

The cross-sectional study included 1128 participants with complete blood pressure data and 963 participants with blood biochemistry data who were aged 17 years at baseline. Cardiorespiratory fitness was defined as physical work capacity 170, and waist circumference was used to determine fatness.
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Waist circumference was positively associated with cardiometabolic risk factors, including systolic blood pressure, triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and high-sensitivity C-reactive. While fitness did not significantly affect these measures of cardiometabolic risk, it did attenuate the relationship between insulin resistance and fatness.

After adjusting for sex, the researchers found that high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) was inversely associated with waist circumference for both sexes. However, fitness was only positively associated with HDL-C in women.

“The adverse effects of central adiposity seen across a broad range of cardiometabolic risk factors were only partially ameliorated by fitness in this adolescent population,” the researchers concluded.

—Melissa Weiss

Reference:

Demmer DL, Beilin LJ, Hands B, et al. Fatness and fitness with cardiometabolic risk factors in adolescents. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2017;102(12):4467-4476. https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2017-00851.