Routine clinical physical activity assessment may give health care providers additional information about their patients' cardiometabolic risk factors for heart disease, according to a new study from Kaiser Permanente.
In this study researchers investigated whether associations between physical activity and cardiometabolic risk factors can be detected in clinical settings. Researchers used electronic records from Kaiser Permanente Southern California members to examine the association of physical-activity category with blood pressure, fasting glucose, random glucose, and glycosylated hemoglobin. Subjects were adults age 18 years or older with at least three measures of physical activity between April 2010 and December 2012, without comorbid conditions, and not taking blood pressure or glucose-lowering medications.
Researchers found that consistently active women had lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure than inactive women. Active men had lower diastolic blood pressure than inactive men. Consistently active patients had lower fasting glucose than consistently inactive patients. Consistently active and irregularly active men and women also had favorable random glucose and HbA1c compared with consistently inactive patients.
Study: Associations Between Physical Activity and Cardiometabolic Risk Factors Assessed in a Southern California Health Care System, 2010-2012, Deborah Rohm Young, PhD, Kaiser Permanente Southern California,