Physical activity during adolescence and early adulthood and adult cardiometabolic risk profile: a longitudinal study

Abstract

Abstract Introduction Physical activity (PA) is important in the prevention of cardiometabolic diseases. However, little is known of the effect of maintaining PA during adolescence and cardiometabolic risk in early adulthood. Purpose This 14-year longitudinal prospective cohort study investigated the association of maintaining PA since adolescence and subsequent cardiometabolic risk factors in early adulthood and to what extend adiposity affects this. Methods Data were drawn from an ongoing cohort and consisted of 262 participants with longitudinal information on PA and cardiometabolic risk factors in adulthood. The cardiometabolic risk factors were collected by blood samples, anthropometric measures, and blood pressure in a health examination at the age of 28 years (table 1). Subsequently, the risk factors were clustered in four domains (“Inflammation”, “Lipids”, “Glucose metabolism” and “Blood pressure”) and calculated into z-scores. Further, a composite z-score of all domains was calculated. PA was obtained by questionnaires at age 15, 18, 21 and 28. The participants were categorized into “inactive maintainers”, “fluctuaters” and “active maintainers” and linear regression was used to examine the association between PA groups and the cardiometabolic domains in a crude and two adjusted models 1 and 2. Results Increasing z-scores from “active maintainers” to “fluctuaters” to “inactive maintainers” were seen in all domains except in “blood pressure” when adjusted for sex, smoking, parental and own education, and parental cardiovascular medical history, and significantly different when comparing “active maintainers” to “inactive maintainers” (table 2, model 1). In the composite z-score outcome including all domains, a significantly adverse z-score was found for “inactive maintainers” z=0.63, p=0.001 when adjusted for the variables in model 1 (table 2). When also adjusted for body fat percentage (model 2), the z-score became insignificant z=0.19, p=0.198 (table 2). Conclusion Maintaining PA from adolescence to early adulthood is associated with a significant lower cardiometabolic risk profile compared to inactive maintainers. However, some of the adverse risk profile is explained by being overweight or obese. Given the increasing prevalence of CVD and diabetes these results highlight the importance of maintaining PA at all stages of life. Funding Acknowledgement Type of funding sources: Private grant(s) and/or Sponsorship. Main funding source(s): Karen Elise Jensen Foundation and The Steno Partner Collaboration between Goedstrup Hospital and Steno Diabetes Center Aarhus.