Ex-Met Study; Exercise In Prevention Of Metabolic Syndrome

Abstract

PURPOSE: Primary objective of this randomized multicenter trial was to investigate effects of different volumes of high intensity interval training (HIIT) compared to current exercise guideline of moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT) on the composite number of cardiovascular disease risk factors constituting the metabolic syndrome after a 16 week and 1-year, follow-up. METHODS: This randomized international multi-center trial included men and women aged ≥30 years diagnosed with the metabolic syndrome. The study consisted of a supervised and “partly supervised” phase to evaluate the efficacy and feasibility of different exercise doses on the metabolic syndrome in a real world setting. This study included 408 participants to one of the following groups: 3 times/week of 4x4 min HIIT at 85-95% HRpeak; 3 times/week of 1x4 min HIIT at 85-95% HRpeak; or iii) 5-7 times/week of ≥30 min MICT at 60-70% HRpeak. Clinical examinations, physical tests and questionnaires were administered to all participants during all testing time points (baseline, 16 weeks and after 1). Changes from baseline to 16w and baseline to 1 year were compared between groups using the Kruskal-Wallis test. Change within each group form baseline to 16 weeks and baseline to 1 year were tested using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The level of significance was set at 5%. RESULTS: Between group changes did not show any significant results (16 weeks and 1 year) in any of the risk factors constituting metabolic syndrome. While within group changes induced almost significance in all variables (see table 1) CONCLUSION: HIIT exercise with low volume seems to be a time-effective strategy for lowering risk factors constituting metabolic syndrome. Although results from this study show that both HIIT and MICT reduces metabolic syndrome risk factors to a similar degree.Table 1: Metabolic syndrome risk factors, baseline to 1 year