The effect of eight weeks of aquatic aerobic training on lipid profile, Glucose, Insulin resistance and Apoprotein A and B in overweight postmenopausal women

Menopausedue to low estrogen levels is associated with an increased fat percentage and particularly visceral fat and it is directly related to the risk of coronary heart diseases; So, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of eight weeks of aquatic aerobic training on lipid profile, Glucose, Insulin resistance and Apoprotein A and B in overweight postmenopausal women.
This randomized clinical trial was performed on 26 postmenopausal women at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in 2014. The subjects were randomly divided into two groups of Control and Exercise. The experimental group participated in Aquatic aerobic training for eight weeks. The three-point method and body composition device, as well as the Homa equation were used to determine the fat percentage, body mass index and insulin resistance, respectively. The related kits were also utilized for evaluation of cholesterol, low and high density lipoprotein, triglycerides, apolipoprotein A and B values. Analyze of data was done by SPSS software (version 16) and Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, dependent t-test and independent t-test. The value of p was considered significant as less than 0.05.
Regular aquatic aerobic training caused a significant decrease in levels of apolipoprotein A (p=0.001) and apolipoprotein B (p=0.019), LDL (p=0.06), total cholesterol (p=0.03), glucose (p=0.038) and insulin resistance (p=0.003) and a significant increase in HDL (p=0.015); in this group, TG also decreased which was not significant (p=0.72). In Control group, levels of apolipoprotein A (p=0.029) and B (p=0.026), declined significantly; in this group, it was observed an significant increase in TG levels (p=0.027) and insignificant increase in total cholesterol (p=0.30) and glucose (p=0.80); insulin resistance decreased which was not significant (p=0.61).
The results indicate that eight weeks of aquatic aerobic training caused an improvement in some cardiovascular risk factors in overweight postmenopausal women and this kind of training is recommended to prevent the risk of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular diseases.