title: Usefulness of fitness testing to establish metabolic syndrome in perimenopausal Moroccan women.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The use of fitness testing for the identification of women at high-risk of metabolic syndrome (MS), and therefore of cardiovascular disease, is clinically relevant.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this study was to determine the ability of a set of physical fitness tests to establish the risk of MS in perimenopausal Moroccan women.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study comprised 151 women (45-65 years) from the North of Morocco. We used standardized field-based fitness tests to assess cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength, flexibility and balance. Fatness was assessed by impedanciometry and anthropometry. We also measured resting heart rate, blood pressure and plasma fasting glucose, total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol, high density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol and triglycerides.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Women with MS performed worse in most of the fitness tests studied. Among the fitness test studied, the six-minute walk test was the most associated to MS. Receiver operating characteristics curve analyses revealed that the six-minute walk test threshold that best discriminated between the presence and absence of MS was 480.5 m (area under curve (AUC): 0.719, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.62-0.82; p<0.001). Logistic regression after adjustment for age and weight showed that a distance ≤480 m is associated with 2.9 times higher risk (95% CI: 1.56-7.65; p<0.05) for having MS.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Including cardiorespiratory fitness as a MS risk factor may improve early identification of at-risk Moroccan women. Fitness testing provides useful information and is cheap, easy to perform, and not time-consuming, which makes its use in this specific clinical settings feasible.
authors: Department of Physiology, University of Granada, Spain virginiaparicio@ugr.es.
authors: Virginia A
authors: VA
authors: Aparicio
authors: Department of Physical Education, University of Cádiz, Spain.
authors: Ana
authors: A
authors: Carbonell-Baeza
authors: Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology, University Abdelmalek Essaadi, Morocco.
authors: Meftaha
authors: M
authors: Senhaji
authors: Department of Physiology, University of Granada, Spain.
authors: Sandra
authors: S
authors: Martín
authors: Department of Physiology, University of Granada, Spain.
authors: Daniel
authors: D
authors: Camiletti-Moirón
authors: Department of Physiology, University of Granada, Spain.
authors: Pilar
authors: P
authors: Aranda
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000886:Anthropometry; D001823:Body Composition / Q000502:physiology; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005080:Exercise Test / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D024821:Metabolic Syndrome / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000534:rehabilitation; D008875:Middle Aged; D009018:Morocco; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D047648:Perimenopause / Q000502:physiology*; D010809:Physical Fitness / Q000502:physiology*; D012372:ROC Curve; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012720:Severity of Illness Index
keywords: Metabolic syndrome; Morocco; cardiovascular disease; physical fitness; six-minute walk test; women