Effects of aerobic exercise training on body composition and metabolic syndrome factors in obese male college student

Abstract

Metabolic syndrome (MS) is emerging as a serious public health problem in Iran. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of 8 weeks of aerobic exercise training on body composition and MS factors in obese Iran male college students. Subjects were randomly assigned to exercise (n = 19) and control (n = 19) groups. The exercise group trained for 50 min/day, for 3 day/week for 8 weeks. Each exercise session comprised 3 phases: warm-up for 10 min, aerobic exercise for 30 min (The exercise intensity for aerobic exercise was 60-80% of the heart rate reserve (HRR) for 30 min) and cool down for 10 min. The paired and unpaired t-test in <0.05 significantly level were used in the statistical analysis. Compared to pre-training, after 8 weeks progressive aerobic exercise on the MS-related factors of blood lipid composition such as triglycerides (TG s), total cholesterol (TC ), low-density lipoprotein (LDL) significantly decreased (P<0.05) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) significantly increased (P<0.05); Also the result shows that percent body fat, waist circumference (WC), systolic blood pressure (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) significantly decreased; while it remained unchanged in control subjects (P>0.05). A 8-week aerobic exercise program could effectively reduce TGs, TC , LDL, percent body fat, WC, SBP, DBP and increase HDL in a sample population of obese Iran male college students. ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR