Adherence to Exercise Prescription and Improvements in the Clinical and Vascular Health of African Americans.
Improvements in indices of vascular health and endothelial function have been inversely associated with hypertension, a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (e.g., myocardial infarction, stroke, and heart failure), renal failure, and mortality. Aerobic exercise training (AEXT) has been positively associated with improvements in clinical health values, as well as vascular health biomarkers, and endothelial function. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether measures of exercise adherence were related to clinical outcome measures and indices of vascular health subsequent to a 6-month AEXT intervention in a middle-to-older aged African American cohort. Following dietary stabilization, sedentary, apparently healthy, African American adults (40 - 71 y/o) underwent baseline testing including blood pressure, flow-mediated dilation (FMD) studies, fasting blood sampling, and graded exercise testing. Upon completion of a supervised 6-month AEXT intervention, participants repeated all baseline tests. Exercise adherence was measured three ways: exercise percentage, exercise volume, and exercise score. There were no significant correlations between the changes in the vascular health biomarkers of the participants and any of the adherence measures. In addition, there were no significant correlations between any of the adherence measures and the clinical values of the participants that had been significantly changed pre-post-AEXT. Participants improved their clinical and vascular health and decreased risk factors for hypertension and cardiovascular disease regardless of their level of adherence to AEXT. Future studies should continue to accurately quantify adherence in order to assess the exercise dose for improvements in vascular and clinical health.
Health Sciences Department, Cedar Crest College, Allentown, PA, USA.
Dianne M
DM
Babbitt
Education Department, Benedictine University, Lisle, IL, USA.
Amanda M
AM
Perkins
Department of Medicine, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
Keith M
KM
Diaz
Department of Health and Exercise Physiology, Ursinus College, Collegeville, PA, USA.
Deborah L
DL
Feairheller
Department of Public Health Sciences, Cancer Institute, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, USA.
Kathleen M
KM
Sturgeon
Kinesiology Department, Penn State Berks, Reading, PA, USA.
Praveen
P
Veerabhadrappa
Exercise Science Department, Shenandoah University, Winchester, VA, USA.
Sheara T
ST
Williamson
Department of Exercise Science, Kings College, Wilkes-Barre, PA, USA.
Jan
J
Kretzschmar
US Army, 1-25 Stryker Brigade, BSB, B Company, Fort Wainwright, AK, USA.
Chenyi
C
Ling
College of Veterinary Medicine, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Hojun
H
Lee
Department of Kinesiology & Nutrition, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
Heather
H
Grim
Department of Kinesiology & Nutrition, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
Michael D
MD
Brown
Physical inactivity; cardiovascular risk factors; clinical intervention; endothelial adaptations; endothelial dysfunction; exercise prescription