Yang and colleagues provide further evidence that a physically active lifestyle during childhood and adolescence has beneficial effects for health during adulthood, in particular reduced risk of metabolic syndrome.
The metabolic syndrome, a clustering of risk factors that include abdominal obesity, dyslipidemia, elevated blood pressure, glucose intolerance and insulin resistance, is known to increase risk of developing cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Within the literature, a number of studies report an association between physical activity, exercise and lower incidence of metabolic syndrome in adults. There are, however, fewer longitudinal studies that investigate whether prolonged exercise, especially that which commences earlier into childhood, has any effect on metabolic risk during adulthood. To address this issue, Yang and colleagues investigated any association between sustained participation in youth sport for three years with risk of metabolic syndrome during a 21 year follow up period. In 1980, 1493 participants (704 male and 489 female) were recruited at which time they were aged 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18 years. Follow up occurred in 1983, 1986, 1989, 1992 and finally in 2001, at which time participants were 24, 27, 30, 33, 36 and 39 years. Participation in youth sport was measured using self-report questionnaires, the data from which was used to categorise participants into ‘non-athletic level, ‘moderate athletic level’ and ‘high athletic level’. Participants were also categorised as Persistent athlete, Starter, Leaver and Non-athlete based on this information. The metabolic syndrome was categorised according to criteria from the European Group for the Study of Insulin Resistance (EGIR). Analysis of this studies findings revealed that participants reporting none, or the least amount of youth sport (i.e. non-athletic level, Non-athlete) had the highest prevalence of metabolic syndrome during the 21 year follow up period, whist those who persistently participated in youth sport had the lowest risk of metabolic syndrome. These findings were consistent for both males and females and remained significant after adjustment for age, baseline metabolic score, smoking, total energy intake and adult leisure time physical activity. Further analysis revealed the level of participation in youth sport to be a significant predictor of metabolic syndrome in both men and women. The findings from this study are encouraging and show long term benefits of participation in exercise during childhood and adolescence for reducing risk of metabolic syndrome in adulthood. Such data adds weight to the promotion of an active lifestyle when young in order to facilitate better health during later years.
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Full reference for paper:
Yang, X., Telama, R., Hirvensalo, M., Viikari, J.S.A. and Raitakari, O.T. (2009) Sustained participation in youth sport decreases metabolic syndrome in adulthood. International Journal of Obesity; 33: 1219-1226