By: Jasjeet Singh & Elvon Baptiste

What is it? Cardiovascular (CV) disease is an irregular function of the heart or blood vessels. Complications from CV disease include the increased risk for heart failure, heart attack, stroke, and ultimately sudden death. In turn, this leads to a decreased quality of life and life expectancy.

CV disease can be attributed to a number of factors that range from heart structure defects, infection, inflammation, and genetics.

Overweight people tend to be at higher risk for CV disease. Weight is an important component as an indirect measure for CV risk. This may be credited to poor blood lipid profiles that consist of abnormal levels in a persons cholesterol, triglycerides, high density lipoprotein cholesterol, and low density lipoprotein cholesterol. This in turn can lead to atherosclerosis which is accumulation of plaque and leads to blockage of the blood vessels.

BMI For most populations, obesity-related health problems increase with a BMI measure higher than 25. In addition, BMI is believed to be associated with coronary heart disease (CHD) risk

Oscar et al., (2005) compares men and women aged > 50 years based on levels of physical activity.

Moderate to high level PA groups of men revealed findings of 1.3 and 3.7 more years in total life expectancy compared to a low PA group. The moderate and high PA groups lived 1.1 and 3.2 more CV disease free years than the low PA group. The women exhibited similar results with 1.5 and 3.5 more years in total life expectancy. Additionally, they lived 1.3 and 3.3 more CV disease free years.

Lars et al., (2000) supports the relationship of leisure time PA and cycling to work results in decreased mortality risk. The Findings revealed: The moderately/highly active individuals, sports participants experienced only half the mortality rates of nonparticipants.

Moreover, studies on adolescents with normal and obese BMI measures suggest that a higher body mass index is associated with an elevated risk for CV disease (Kanavi et al., 2011; Ravasankar et al., 2005; and Snchez, Salazar, Anaya, Lazcano, 2009).

Physical activity studies did not control for nutritional habits. This is critical because weight reduction is highly dependent on caloric expenditure. Sure you can be active and plan to loose wait. But!!!, not if your eating 10x the calories You want to be in a caloric deficit when summing the intake and expenditure for weight decrease.

The studies of BMI relate it to weight and obesity. BMI is an OK measure for weight but not accurate to obesity. Obesity related more to body fat percentages Body fat percentages more accurately assessed by methods such as skin fold techniques.

Participants The participants were volunteers from the Internet technology company, Ipreo. Ipreo is a company that writes and codes financial software. 30 volunteers for the study with prior exercise experience in an attempt to limit the learning curve. Participants required to have access to a treadmill. They needed to first clear all risk stratification forms.

Perscribed exercise based heart rate max percentages n accordance to ACSM guidelines Light intensity = 57% of HR max Moderate intensity = 67 of HR max First 3 weeks at light intensity Last 3 weeks at moderate intensity Groups A & B only differ in the time durations per exercise session; 30 and 20 minutes respectively Weight recorded pre/post study and variance of means assessed by T tests

BMI calculated pre and post study to determine a shift between categories for any participants A BMI scale consist of categories of normal, overweight, and class one obese; corresponding values are 18.525, 2530, and 30-35. A BMI value less than 18.5 is considered under weight. The calculation for BMI is body weight in kilograms (kg) x height in meters squared (m2)

There was a significant difference between pre test subjects weight (M=174.9, SD=45.12) and post test subjects weight (M=171.13, SD=43.28) on the pre-test weight total score, t(29) = 4.14, p = .00 and the post-test weight total score, t(29) = 4.52, p = .00.

There was not any significant difference between group A (M=167.73, SD= 34.79) and group B (M=174.53, SD=51.42) on the post-test weight total score, t(28) = -4.24, p = .675. Additionally, there was not any significant difference between group A (M=173.33, SD= 37.81) and group B (M=176.46, SD=52.74) on the pre-test weight total score, t(28) = -1.87, p = .853.

There was not any significant difference between group A (M=25.54, SD= 3.88) and group B (M=26.3, SD=6.03) on the pre-test BMI total score, t(28) = -4.10, p = .685. Additionally, there was not any significant difference between group A (M=24.74, SD= 3.57) and group B (M=25.98, SD=5.85) on the post-test BMI total score, t(28) = -.697, p = .493. In addition to the T-tests performed to determine significance between the aforementioned variables, only one participant out of thirty depicted changes in a shift between categories of BMI.

Although results of the independent samples T-test were not ideal in matching the proposed hypothesis, the paired sample Ttest did show statistically significant data among the total participant sample in pre/post weight and BMI total scores. Therefore the hypothesis was partially supported since it was anticipated that there would be a reduction in weight and BMI for the overall sample. In turn, this would translate into lower CV risk

The findings of this six week study did not reveal any significant difference between group A and group B on the post-test or the pre-test weight total scores. Additionally, there was not any significant difference between group A and group B on the pre-test BMI or the post-test BMI total score.

We found only one participant who changed their BMI status. The participant went from the overweight category to the normal weight category. This study supports the ACSM guidelines for exercise prescription and progression and would be effective to some extent.

Though this finding didnt have any statistical significance or credibility for generalizing to a large population, but It insignificantly supported that 30 minutes of PA was more beneficial than 20 minutes In all, this indicates the training parameters of this program were not effective for between group differences among the mentioned variables

The lack of significance in weight loss and BMI between groups may be attributed to several study parameters. In future studies, a larger sample size would allow for further variation. In turn, this may yield more favorable results A control group will allow for better precision in observing direct effects and changes amongst groups.