A new study has found that fitness level, not body fat, could be stronger in judging longevity for older adults.
Xuemei Sui, M.D., of the University of South Carolina, Columbia, and colleagues found that adults over the age of 60 who had higher levels of cardiorespiratory fitness lived longer than unfit adults, independent of their levels of body fat.The findings are based on a study, in which researchers examined the associations between cardiorespiratory fitness, various clinical measures of adiposity (body fat) and death in older women and men.
The study included 2,603 adults age 60 years or older (average age, 64.4 years; 19.8 percent women) enrolled in the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study who completed a baseline health examination during 1979-2001.
Fitness was assessed by a treadmill exercise test and adiposity was assessed by body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, and percent body fat. Low fitness was defined as the lowest fifth of the sex-specific distribution of treadmill exercise test duration. There were 450 deaths during an average follow-up of 12 years.
The research team found that those who died were older, had lower fitness levels, and had more cardiovascular risk factors than survivors. However, there were no significant differences in adiposity measures. Participants in the higher fitness groups were for the most part less likely to have risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as hypertension, diabetes, or high cholesterol levels.
Fit participants had lower death rates than unfit participants within each stratum of adiposity, except for two of the obesity groups. In most instances, death rates for those with higher fitness were less than half of rates for those who were unfit.
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“We observed that fit individuals who were obese (such as those with BMI of 30.0-34.9, abdominal obesity, or excessive percent body fat) had a lower risk of all-cause mortality than did unfit, normal-weight, or lean individuals. Our data therefore suggest that fitness levels in older individuals influence the association of obesity to mortality,” the researchers said.
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The new study is published in the December 5 issue of JAMA.
Source-ANI
LIN/P