EEffects of three months of water-based exercise training on metabolic syndrome components in older women

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of water-based exercise training on metabolic syndrome components in older women. The subjects were randomly divided into an experimental group who participated in the water-based exercise training and a control group who was not involved in the training and remained sedentary. The quantification of clinical and biochemical parameters of abdominal obesity, atherogenic dyslipidemia, elevated blood pressure and insulin resistance without glucose intolerance by a medical and laboratory evaluation to assess the presence of metabolic syndrome components was done according to the guidelines of the National Cholesterol Educational Program Adult Treatment Panel-III (NCEP ATP-III). The training protocol consisted of water-based exercise training sessions 5 times per week during 12 weeks of intervention, executed in a pool of 1.3 meters divided into three phases: A 10-minute warm-up, 30 minutes of aerobic exercise at 50%-60% of maximum heart rate (monitored by heart rate monitor) and a 10 minute cool down. As a statistical method to compare the results between groups of variables pre and post training, the statistical analysis ANOVA mixed 2 X 2 (group X measurement) was done using SPSS version 21. The results for the metabolic syndrome components only indicated statistically significant interactions for triglycerides mg.dl-1 (p=0.002) between the groups and the measurements. Thus, the training program produced significant benefits on metabolic health indicators in particular decreasing triglycerides.