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Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Efforts to combat cardiovascular disease (CVD) have proven effective, especially in the population aged 55-74 years. However, less research has been conducted in younger populations to determine at what age CVD risk develops. The purpose of this study is to compare cardiovascular health markers in adults, specifically CVD risk between younger adults aged 18-22 and a slightly older group of adults in middle adulthood aged 23-54. Cardiovascular health measures were collected from a group of adults; 13 younger adults (20.2±0.9 yrs) and 10 adults in middle adulthood (42.9±10.1 yrs). All participants were free of CVD and diabetes, taking no cholesterol medication, and no more than one blood pressure (BP) medication. Cardiovascular measures included clinical and 24-hour BP, body mass index (BMI), fasted plasma glucose and cholesterol levels, and VO2max. There was no difference in VO2max, glucose and cholesterol levels, or clinical BP measures between the groups, but there were differences in diastolic 24-hour BP, daytime diastolic BP, and nighttime diastolic BP (p<0.05 for all). No relationship between 24-hour BP and cardiovascular health variables were observed in the younger group of adults. However, there was a relationship between 24-hour systolic BP and daytime systolic BP with glucose, HDL, and triglycerides in the group of adults aged 23-54 (p<0.05 for all). The results of the present study suggest that systolic BP may have an effect on CVD risk in adults over the age of 23 years.

Department

Kinesiology

Publication Date

8-23-2017

Journal Title

International Journal of Exercise Science

Document Type

Article

Comments

This is an article published in International Journal of Exercise Science in 2017, available online.

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