Efficacy and educational role of a daily employment of the accelerometer to improve the life style in overweight-hypertensive population

Abstract

Introduction. The daily evaluation of the lifestyle is fundamental to establish the amount of the nullphysical activity as therapynull to reduce the cardiovascular risk. In addition to a simple questionnaire, a long period registration by an accelerometer can be helpful to identify active from inactive subjects. The aim of the present study is to verify, in a small cohort of subjects at high risk level (obese hypertensive), the health outcomes. Material and methods. 22 subjects (15 male, 7 female) were evaluated by the questionnaire and also by an accelerometer positioned on belt for 5 days to establish the daily Physical Activity Level (PAL) distinguished as low walking, fast walking, jogging. The anthropometrics parameters, including body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), hip circumference (HC) and body compositions parameters like fat mass (FM), free fat mass (FFM), total body - intracellular and extracellular water (TBW, ICW, ECW) and phase angle (PA) were measured at the beginning (T0) and after 3 months (T3) of exercise. The amount of the exercise prescribed for three months and at least 3 times in a weak, was determined by the cardiopulmonary test parameters using the formula evaluating the max HR corresponding to the 60% of the VO2. Statistical analysis included Student's t-test for paired data with a significance at p<0.05. Results. Respect of the questionnaire the accelerometer report showed a predominantly inactive lifestyle (PAL 1.49(plus or minus)0.13). After 3 months of exercise, BMI was significantly reduced (T0=29.61(plus or minus)9.11; T3=28.8(plus or minus)8.89) in all (p<0.05). A trend toward a reduction was observed for FM (T0=26.23(plus or minus)10.5 kg; T3=23.08(plus or minus)8.03 kg), for the WC (T0=102(plus or minus)13 cm; T3=93.63(plus or minus)15 cm) the HC (T0=106.(plus or minus)7 cm; T3=101.2(plus or minus)2 cm) the TBW (T0=49.3(plus or minus)9.0 l; T3=41.36 (plus or minus)9.46 l) and ICW (T0=23.91(plus or minus)6.25 l; T3=22.90(plus or minus)6.16 l) while the PA maintained the values within the normal range (T0=7.84(degrees)(plus or minus)1,4; T3=6.48(degrees)(plus or minus)1.23). A significant variation was on the contrary observed among the values of the ratio TBW/ECW (T0=2.41>T3=2.24; p<0.05). (Graph presented) Conclusions. The employment of the accelerometer is associated with an improvement of those parameters strongly related to cardiovascular risk. The results obtained support the educational role of the accelerometer in high-risk subjects.