Women Who Lack Exercise At Greater Risk Of Developing Metabolic Syndrome

4.5 (2 votes)

A national study shows that women are less likely than men to get at least 30 minutes of exercise per day, resulting in greater odds of developing metabolic syndrome - a risky and increasingly prevalent condition related to obesity.

Metabolic syndrome is a name for a group of risk factors - including high cholesterol, high blood pressure and extra weight around the middle part of the body - which occur together and increase the risk for coronary disease, stroke, and Type 2 diabetes. The researchers initially were interested in the correlation between physical activity, depression and metabolic syndrome, and ended up finding a gender difference.

The study, now online in the journal Preventive Medicine, was conducted at Oregon State University by Paul Loprinzi and Bradley Cardinal, professor of social psychology of physical activity at OSU. Loprinzi is now an assistant professor of exercise science at Bellarmine University. He conducted the research when he was a student in Cardinal's lab at OSU.

"The results indicate that regular physical activity participation was associated with positive health outcomes for both men and women; however, there was a greater strength of association for women," Loprinzi said.

Looking at more than 1,000 men and women from a nationally represented sample, the researchers found that women were getting only about 18 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise daily, compared to men who, on average, were getting 30 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise daily.

"Those who get at least 30 minutes of exercise a day are less likely to be depressed, less likely to have high cholesterol and less likely to have metabolic syndrome," Loprinzi said.

Loprinzi and Cardinal's study is unique in part because it is the first to use an "objective" measure of physical activity - in this case participants were outfitted with accelerometers that measured daily activity. In their study, slightly more than one in three women had metabolic syndrome, and one in five had symptoms of depression.

"It's pretty striking what happens to you if you don't meet that 30 minutes a day of activity," Cardinal said. "Women in our sample had better health behavior - they were much less likely to smoke for instance, but the lack of activity still puts them at risk."

Cardinal said depression puts people at more risk of abdominal fat and insulin resistance, and both are risk factors for metabolic syndrome.

"Physical activity has been shown to reduce depression," he said. "So the key message here is to get that 30 minutes of exercise every day because it reduces a great deal of risk factors."

While their study does not address why women were not getting enough exercise, the authors said research shows that physical activity patterns often begin in childhood.

"Research has shown that around ages 5 or 6 these patterns begin," Cardinal said. "Parents tend to be more concerned with the safety of girls, and have more restrictive practices around outdoor time and playtime than with boys."

Loprinzi said this pattern tends to continue into adulthood, and that overall confidence may be a factor.

"Some evidence indicates that women, compared to men, have less confidence in their ability to overcome their exercise-related barriers," Loprinzi said, adding that women also often cite a lack of time to exercise due to child-rearing.

The researchers have a study coming out that may help those time-challenged women. Loprinzi said he and Cardinal found that adults can still enhance their health by accumulating physical activity in short periods throughout the day, such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator or pacing while talking on the phone.

Women At Greater Risk Of Knee Injuries

5 (1 votes)

Women are more prone to knee injuries than men, and the findings of a new study suggest this may involve more than just differences in muscular and skeletal structure - it shows that males and females also differ in the way they transmit the nerve impulses that control muscle force.

Scientists at Oregon State University found that men control nerve impulses similar to individuals trained for explosive muscle usage - like those of a sprinter - while the nerve impulses of women are more similar to those of an endurance-trained athlete, like a distance runner.

In particular, the research may help to explain why women tend to suffer ruptures more often than men in the anterior cruciate ligament of their knees during non-contact activities. These ACL injuries are fairly common, can be debilitating, and even when repaired can lead to osteoarthritis later in life.

More study of these differences in nervous system processing may lead to improved types of training that individuals could use to help address this issue, scientists said.

"It's clear that women move differently than men, but it's not as obvious why that is," said Sam Johnson, a clinical assistant professor in the OSU School of Biological and Population Health Sciences.

"There are some muscular and skeletal differences between men and women, but that doesn't explain differences in injury rates as much as you might think," Johnson said. "No one has really studied the role of the nervous system the way we have in explaining these differences, specifically the way sensory information is processed and integrated with motor function in the spinal cord."

In this study, just published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, the scientists found that most aspects of spinal motor control and rapid activation of muscles were similar in 17 men and 17 women that were examined - with one exception. Men had a higher level of "recurrent inhibition," which is a process in the spinal cord that helps select the appropriate muscle response.

Even a process as simple as walking is surprisingly complicated, as people process large amounts of information and use varying forces to move around obstacles, change direction or simply climb up a step. And when you slip on an icy patch, the need for extremely rapid and accurate muscle response might be all that stands between you and a broken hip.

For some reason, women tend to have knee motions that make them more susceptible to injury. Among other things, when landing from a jump their knees tend to collapse inward more than that of most men. They suffer significantly more ACL injuries during physical activity.

"We're finding differences in nervous system processing that we believe are related to this," Johnson said. "The causes for those differences are unclear, but it may be due either to a biological difference, such as hormones, or a cultural difference such as different exercise and training patterns."

This research was supported by the National Athletic Trainers' Association Research and Education Foundation. Researchers at Marquette University collaborated on the work.

While researchers continue to study what might help address this, Johnson said it's already possible for women to be more aware of these common differences and do exercises that should reduce problems.

Many ACL injury prevention programs incorporate strength, balance, flexibility, and jump training. However, based on these and other findings, women - especially athletes - should consider training with motions more similar to those of their sport, such as squatting, lunging, jumping or cutting side-to-side.

Use of heavy weights may not really be necessary, Johnson said, so much as mimicking the motions that often cause this injury.