Abstract
The aim of this work was to investigate the effect of age on the association between daily gait speed (DGS) and abdominal obesity defined by visceral fat area (VFA). A cross-sectional study was performed using data from an annual community-based health check-up. A total of 699 participants aged 20–88 years were enrolled in this analysis. DGS was assessed using tri-axial accelerometers worn for ≥ 7 days with at least 10 measuring hours each day. VFA was measured using a visceral fat meter. Since DGS differed significantly with age, the participants were divided into two groups: younger adults (YA), aged 20–49 years, and older adults (OA), aged 50–88 years. The association between DGS and VFA differed significantly with age (r = 0.099 for YA and r = − 0.080 for OA; test for difference between correlation coefficients, P = 0.023). In OA, the adjusted odds ratio of abdominal obesity (VFA ≥ 100 cm2) was 0.40 (95% confidence interval 0.18, 0.88, P = 0.022) for the highest DGS quartile (DGS ≥ 1.37 m/s) compared to that for the lowest quartile (DGS < 1.11 m/s), whereas no significant association was found in YA. These data could aid in raising awareness of the self-management of obesity via DGS monitoring, especially in OA.
Highlights
The aim of this work was to investigate the effect of age on the association between daily gait speed (DGS) and abdominal obesity defined by visceral fat area (VFA)
The relationship between age and DGS was significantly different before and after the vertex (r = 0.130 for younger adults (YA) and r = − 0.388 for older adults (OA); test for difference between correlation coefficients, P < 0.001). This difference remained significant after adjusting for sex and average steps (r = 0.091 for YA and r = − 0.323 for OA; test for difference between correlation coefficients, P < 0.001)
The proportion of abdominal obesity was significantly higher in OA than in YA (P = 0.048), whereas the proportion of general obesity was not significantly different
Summary
The aim of this work was to investigate the effect of age on the association between daily gait speed (DGS) and abdominal obesity defined by visceral fat area (VFA). A recent meta-analysis study showed that elderly subjects (mean age ≥ 59 years) expend more metabolic energy than younger subjects (mean age 18–41 years) when walking at comparable speeds[6], suggesting that individuals need to be classified by age. Another possible explanation is that gait speed was assessed in laboratory settings in previous studies. In terms of energy expenditure when walking during daily life, DGS might be a better indicator of the risk of obesity than in-laboratory gait speed
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