Associations between measures of obesity and arterial stiffness of young Hispanic men
Abstract
Arterial stiffness and obesity are independent predictors of coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease mortality; however, there is conflicting evidence for the association between arterial stiffness and obesity. Arterial stiffness research of young Hispanic males is limited. PURPOSE: To examine the association between measures of obesity and peripheral and aortic stiffness of young Hispanic men. METHODS: All data are expressed as mean ± SD. Participants were 23 non-obese (nOB; BMI 25.87±3.09 kg/m2) and 21 obese (OB: BMI 35.42±4.87 kg/m2) young Hispanic men (age range 18–25 years). Measures of obesity included body fat percentage, BMI, waist circumference, hip circumference, and waist-to-hip ratio. Arterial stiffness was determined at rest and post-exercise with pulse wave velocity (PWV) and augmentation index (AIx). Between-group comparisons (nOB vs. OB) were conducted with a mixed model analysis of variance and multivariate analysis was used to determine the strongest predictor of arterial stiffness. RESULTS: Peripheral PWV at rest was significantly greater (p=0.013) in the OB group (8.49±1.25 m/s) compared to the nOB group (7.53±1.17 m/s) and post-exercise differences between groups were uniformly in the hypothesized direction (OB: 8.16±1.24; nOB: 7.42±1.7 m/s, p=0.055). There was no significant between-group difference in AIx at rest (OB: 1.1±15.4%; nOB: 2.4±17.0%) or post-exercise (OB: -54.3±20.8; nOB: -61.9±12.6) (p>0.05). Of the predictors entered into the statistical model, waist-to-hip ratio was a stronger predictor of PWV than body fat percentage. CONCLUSION: The results of this study suggest that for young Hispanic men the distribution of adipose tissue may be a better predictor of arterial stiffness than total body fatness. These results for young Hispanic men reiterate the potential negative impact of central adiposity on the risk for cardiovascular disease. Additionally, acute exercise resulted in increased arterial compliance with no significant difference observed between groups which may have been related to the exercise intensity or duration. Future studies are needed to determine if a higher intensity or longer duration of exercise may elicit significantly different changes between obese and non-obese young Hispanic men.
Subject Area
Kinesiology|Hispanic American studies
Recommended Citation
Perez, Maria, "Associations between measures of obesity and arterial stiffness of young Hispanic men" (2015). ETD Collection for University of Texas, El Paso. AAI10000804.
https://scholarworks.utep.edu/dissertations/AAI10000804