Fitness Helps Improve Lipid Profile

A measure of the ability of the body’s circulatory and respiratory systems to supply oxygen to the skeletal muscles during sustained physical activity, cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) may be achieved by plentiful aerobic exercise. Yong-Moon Mark Park, from the University  of South Carolina (South Carolina, USA), and colleagues analyzed data collected on 11,418 men enrolled in the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study, ages 20 to 90 years, without known high cholesterol, high triglycerides, cardiovascular disease, and cancer at the study’s and during follow-up averaging 36 years.  The researchers conducted blood tests to ascertain cholesterol levels, and administered treadmill tests to measure cardiorespiratory fitness.  The team observed that the better men did on the fitness tests, the more likely they were to have lower total cholesterol, lower levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL, “bad” cholesterol), and higher levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL, “good” cholesterol).  Men with higher cardiorespiratory fitness levels had better cholesterol profiles than less fit men from their early 20s until at least their early 60s, though the difference diminished with older age. As well, men with lower fitness levels reached abnormal cholesterol levels before age 40. The study authors write that: “Our investigation reveals a differential trajectory of lipids and lipoproteins with aging according to [cardiorespiratory fitness] in healthy men and suggests that promoting increased  [cardiorespiratory fitness] levels may help delay the development of dyslipidemia.”