Acute and Chronic Effects of Physical Activity on Emerging Risk Factors of Heart Attack in Overweight Men

Homocysteine, fibrinogen and C-reactive protein (CRP) are three independent factors that independently and strongly predict the cardiovascular risks.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the acute and chronic responses of these cardiovascular risk factors following physical activity in overweight healthy inactive middle-aged men.

The subjects included 21 healthy inactive men that were assigned into two groups of experimental (N = 11) and control (N = 10). The exercise protocol consisted of circuit resistance exercise (one session protocol) with intensity of 35% of 1RM; endurance training protocol lasting for 12 weeks (three sessions a week) and running exercise with intensity of 75% to 85% of maximum heart rate. Blood samplings were taken in pretest and posttest. The data was used using paired and independent samples t-test were used for statistical analysis of data.

The results indicated that there was a significant increase in homocysteine and CRP following circuit resistance exercise (P ≤ 0.05) while no significant change was found in fibrinogen in experimental group after exercise (P > 0.05). Additionally, the levels of CRP and homocysteine were significantly decreased after three months of aerobic exercises, (P ≤ 0.05) however no significant change of fibrinogen was observed (P > 0.05).

Although it seems that atherogenic inflammatory processes are more sensitive to exercise than coagulatory processes in inactive middle-aged men, more researches are needed for crucial decisions.