Relationships among physical activity, physical fitness and coronary risk factors in adult women--comparison between premenopausal and postmenopausal women

Abstract

The relationships among daily physical activity, physical fitness and the risk factors for coronary heart disease (CHD) were studied comparing 477 premenopausal women (36.1 +/- 7.6 yr) and 178 naturally postmenopausal women (56.7 +/- 5.8 yr). The results were as follows. 1) No relationship between physical fitness and daily activity level was found in either groups. 2) In premenopausal women, daily activity was associated with blood pressure, triglycerides (TG) and blood sugar only in the low-fitness group. But there was no relation between risk factors and the level of daily activity in the high-fitness group. 3) In postmenopausal women, the low-fitness group showed increasing TC/HDLC and decreasing HDLC associated with the low daily activity. TC, LDLC and TC/HDLC were lower in the high-fitness-with-high-daily-activity group than in the high-fitness-with-low-daily-activity group. 4) In both groups, the levels of TG and TC/HDLC were lower in the high-fitness group than in the low-fitness group. This suggests that serum lipids have a closer relation to fitness than to daily activity. These results indicate that the relationships among daily activity, physical fitness and CHD risk factors are different in menopausal status, and that daily activity is one of the most important factors to reduce CHD risk factors, especially in unfit or postmenopausal women.