gms | German Medical Science

Objective: In the past decade, metabolic and cardiovascular pathology in obese subjects is being increasingly in direct relation-ship with the accumulation of visceral fat than excess subcutaneous tissue. Abdominal obesity is now recognized as a major factor that holds a central place in the etiology of type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertensive disease, atherosclerosis and coronary heart pathology. After a long period of time when it was thought that the excess adipose tissue, regardless of its localization, is the cause for an entire range of pathological manifestations, the researchers’ point of view got changed nowadays to such an extent that we now deal with a clear difference of risks related to the process of cumulating adipose tissue in different areas of the body. In other words, the metabolic and cardiovascular pathology at obese or overweight persons have to be directly related to the visceral accumulation of body fat rather than to the total amount of excessive overweight. Moreover, even if the BMI is kept at normal values, the excess of visceral fatness remains a risk factor for cardiovascular pathology.

The purpose of our study were to compare two physical exercise programs on abdominal adiposity and the correlation of these effects with the modification of serum lipids.

Material/Methods: The study has been carried out for 6 months and included 20 obese male subjects, aged 25.2±2.6yr. The research subjects been separated into 2 groups: group I (n=10) who has undertaken 45 minutes of intermittent submaximal exercise/sessions, 3 sessions/week; group II (n=10) who has performed three events of 15 minutes x 3/week with maximal and submaximal exercise. During the exercise sessions, intensity of effort was heart rates monitored by heart rates telemetric recorded with Suunto Team Monitor. Monthly, we have recorded for each subject the body weight, the waist circumference, abdominal adiposity (by ultrasonographic measurement) and serum lipid parameters (triglycerides, LDL- cholesterol, HDL- cholesterol).

Results: Generally, from the analysis of results it can be observe a favorable evolution in all parameters. Additionally, the correlations between variation of serum lipid parameters, as a result of the physical exercise program, was better at group II than the variation of the same parameters at group II.

Conclusion: For treatment of young with obesity, the using of submaximal and maximal exercises in short sessions has better results than only submaximal exercises on abdominal adiposity and serum lipid parameters. Acknowledgements. This work was supported by CNCSIS–UEFISCSU, Romania, Grant No. 385/2008, Ideas_PNCDI 2.