Early adulthood exercise capacity, not muscle strength, reduces CVD risk
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Exercise capacity, but not muscle strength, during early adulthood may indicate lower risk for carotid plaque development, according to findings published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
“This cohort study that followed men for approximately 40 years from early adulthood found that exercise capacity at early adulthood was consistently associated with lower prevalence of carotid plaques at later adulthood independent of muscle strength,” Melony Fortuin-de Smidt, postdoctoral fellow in the department of public health and clinical medicine at Umeå University in Sweden, and colleagues wrote. “This beneficial association of exercise capacity on the presence of plaques was mediated through the combination of later, but not early, adulthood CVD risk factors.”
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Using data collected in the VIPVIZA trial, the researchers studied 797 Swedish men eligible for military conscription between 1973 and 1976. At the time of conscription, an examination was performed that measured muscle strength and maximal exercise capacity.
Participants completed a baseline assessment between 2013 and 2016 when they became age 60 years, which included a self-administered questionnaire, measurements of height, weight, systolic and diastolic BP, dyslipidemia measurements and an oral glucose tolerance test.
The researchers found that participants with high exercise capacity in early adulthood were more likely not to have plaques present in later adulthood (41.4%) compared with those with low exercise capacity (34.6%; P = .049). This demonstrated that higher exercise capacity was associated with 17% lower odds (OR = 0.83; 95% CI, 0.71-0.98; P = .024) of having plaques in later adulthood.
The researchers found no relationship between muscle strength and subclinical atherosclerosis.
“Our results suggest that high exercise capacity, but not muscle strength, during early adulthood may protect against the development of plaques in men during adulthood, which were mediated through the combination of later adulthood traditional CVD risk factors,” Fortuin-de Smidt and colleagues wrote. “A concerted effort to optimize exercise capacity at an early age, such as advocating the incorporation of more high-intensity activities during adolescence, is therefore imperative.”
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