CHANGES IN BLOOD LIPIDS AFTER 2-MONTH OUTPATIENT AEROBIC TRAINING FOLLOWED BY 6-MONTH HOME-BASED TRAINING WITH HEART RATE MONITORING IN PEOPLE WITH METABOLIC SYNDROME

Abstract

Objective: The objective was to evaluate the changes in blood lipids after the 2-month outpatient aerobic exercise program (aEP) followed by the 6-month home-based aEP using a heart rate (HR) monitor in people with metabolic syndrome (MetS). Design and method: A total of 132 people with MetS were included to the prospective study (mean age 52.4 ± 6.26 years, 54.5% female). At first, training HR was evaluated for each participant by performing an incremental cardiopulmonary exercise test on the cycle ergometer. Initially, all study subjects participated in the 2-month outpatient aEP, which consisted of 40 individual aerobic training sessions on a cycle ergometer 5 times/week for 40 min. During all training sessions, HR was maintained at the targeted level (ERS-2 Ergoline bicycle). All participants received recommendations for home-based training and were randomly allocated to the intervention (n = 66) or control group (n = 66). Then only the intervention group participated in the 6-month home-based aEP using a HR monitor (Polar-H10), which was connected to the smartphone via Bluetooth. Special smartphone application enabled participants to keep their training HR during home-based exercises. Blood lipids, such as total cholesterol (TC), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and triglycerides (TG) were assessed in all participants at baseline and after 8 months. Blood samples were obtained at rest, between 7 AM and 12 PM after overnight fast and abstinence from caffeine and at least 2 hours after smoking. Results: After 8 months, LDL-C level significantly reduced in the intervention and control groups (-0.30 ± 0.84 vs. -0.57 ± 1.12 mmol/L, p = 0.011 and p = 0.002, respectively). The significant reduction of TC level was present only in the control group (-0.58 ± 1.32 mmol/L, p = 0.001), but between-group difference was not significant (p = 0.475). After 8 months, HDL-C level significantly increased only in the intervention group by 6.3% (0.08 ± 0.22 mmol/L, p = 0.011) with significant between-group difference (p = 0.047). No statistically significant reduction of TG was observed in any of the groups (all p > 0.05). Conclusions: People with MetS, who participated not only in the 2-month outpatient aEP but also in the 6-month home-based aEP using a HR monitor, reached a greater increase of HDL-C.