Cardiorespiratory Fitness

Have you noticed that everything in the world is becoming larger than normal? This goes from portion sizes to actual people. Obesity has become a very prevalent problem in the United States. Various measures of adiposity (body fat) were shown, in some previous studies, to have a relationship with increased cardiovascular disease and death. Although multiple measures of body fat were used, none of these measures measured cardiorespiratory fitness. The purpose of this article was to determine the relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness, various measures of adiposity, and all-cause mortality in women. Whether these results remained true when applied to a larger group of adult women was also investigated.
Participants in the study included 11,335 adult
women. These women completed a baseline comprehensive medical examination at the Cooper Clinic in Dallas, Texas during the years of 1970 and 2005. Body mass index, waist circumference, waist-to-height ratio, waist-to-hip ratio, percent body fat, and cardiorespiratory fitness by means of a maximal exercise test were all collected during the baseline examination. Those that did not meet at least 85% of age-predicted maximal heart rate were then excluded. All women were US residents, and most women were Caucasian and from the middle to upper socioeconomic strata. Participants were observed from the baseline examination date up to December 31, 2006 or death if that proceeded.
After the end date for data collection, 292 deaths had occurred.
HR across BMI categories of normal, overweight, and obese were significantly higher in unfit than fit women. This is because the heart works harder for unfit individuals. Using body fat measures as a way to determine all-cause mortality in women may not be useful. The only way it could be useful is if cardiorespiratory fitness is considered as well. Cardiorespiratory fitness is strongly and inversely related to all-cause mortality with or without factors such as body fat measures. Low cardiorespiratory fitness in women was an important independent predictor of all-cause mortality. Higher cardiorespiratory fitness was associated with lower deaths within each category of adiposity. Rates of all-cause mortality were significantly lower in fit-normal BMI women than in unfit women within each stratum BMI. Fit women with high BMI, percent body fat, high waist circumference, and high waist-to-height ratio had no greater risk of death compared with their fit-normal counterparts. BMI was not an important way to determine all-cause death in women. I believe additional information may be required to see if this applies to males, adolescents, and
children. This article was well written. If you have no previous background about the information presented, you may have some difficulty understanding the material. As a college student studying in this area, it was understandable. The authors conclusions were related to what was studied. He did not go on a tangent or anything similar. I liked how the charts were small and fit into where that subject was being discussed. I didn’t have to flip back and forth.