Relevance of Physical Fitness and Cardiovascular Disease Risk

Area of Science:

• Exercise physiology
• Cardiovascular health
• Preventive medicine

Background:

• Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains a leading cause of mortality globally.
• Assessing CVD risk often involves complex clinical and biochemical markers.
• The role of physical fitness as a readily measurable CVD risk indicator requires further exploration.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the association between physical fitness metrics and cardiovascular disease risk.
• To determine if muscular endurance and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) correlate with coronary artery disease risk scores.
• To examine these relationships across different obesity statuses in adult males and females.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from 51,500 participants in the Republic of China Armed Forces.
• Assessed physical fitness through 2-minute push-ups, 2-minute sit-ups, and 3,000-meter running tests.
• Calculated Framingham risk score for coronary artery disease (FRS-CAD) and analyzed correlations using regression models, adjusting for covariates.

Main Results:

• Significant negative correlations were found between fitness performance quartiles and FRS-CAD in males, irrespective of obesity status (P<0.001).
• Higher quartiles of physical fitness were associated with lower FRS-CAD in male participants (P for trend <0.001).
• No significant relationship between fitness performance and FRS-CAD was observed in females.

Conclusions:

• Fitness performance, encompassing muscular endurance and CRF, shows a substantial association with FRS-CAD in adult males.
• Physical fitness may serve as a practical tool for evaluating future CVD risk in the healthy male population in Taiwan.
• Further research could validate fitness metrics for routine CVD risk assessment in specific demographics.