Abstract

The data from the Tecumseh Community Health Study indicate that the most active subjects have lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure and lower concentrations of blood cholesterol, triglycerides and uric acid. Fewer of theactive respondents showed the presence of very low density lipoprotein and there was at least a trend for the active subjects to have better glucose tolerance. Diet could not account for these differences; however, body fatnesswas negatively related to physical activity and positively related to blood pressure, blood lipids and serum uric acid. Body fatness appeared to more closely correlated to these risk factors than physical inactivity. However, this may be due to better methods for measuring fatness than for estimating physical activity. The difficulties in classifying large numbers of peopleby energy expenditures are well known. The methods, including ours, are crude, and it is possible that some of our subjects are misclassified. One also can argue that the question is academic, since if one increases his physical activity and thereby becomes leaner and the risk factors improved, whether the effect is direct or indirect may be unimportant. Finally, the range in physical activity is not great since only a small percentage of people in United States are physically active. Verf.-Referat (gekuerzt)