The behaviour of some biologic parameters in obese patients after short-term exercise under restrictive diets

Seven obese female patients with a mean age of 40 have received for 3-4 days a diet of 1000 cal followed by a diet of 300 cal/day. At the end of each period of diet, the patients performed an exercise of 75 watts for 15 min on the ergometric bicycle. Some biologic parameters determined before, as well as 15 min and 60 min after exercise did not show important differences in terms of the diet applied. Glycemia was constantly low, while glucagon, lactate and free fatty acids (FFA) values rose, particularly within the 15 min following exercise. After the same interval, insulinemia was unchanged or even increased. These results support the opinion that, even under restrictive diets, the reaction of obese patients to a short-term exercise is similar to that of normal weight subjects, their sources of energy being the same. The behaviour of insulinemia, which did not change or even increased, while in normal weight subjects it decreases on exercise, might be due to a lesser epinephrine activity in obese patients and/or a lesser FFA release from the adipose tissue.