The associations of cardiorespiratory fitness, adiposity and sports participation with arterial stiffness in youth with chronic diseases or physical disabilities

Abstract

BackgroundThe evidence on the associations of cardiorespiratory fitness, body adiposity and sports participation with arterial stiffness in children and adolescents with chronic diseases or physical disabilities is limited.MethodsAltogether 140 children and adolescents with chronic diseases or physical disabilities participated in this cross-sectional study. Cardiorespiratory fitness was assessed using maximal exercise test with respiratory gas analyses either using shuttle run, shuttle ride, or cycle ergometer test. Cardiorespiratory fitness was defined as peak oxygen uptake by body weight or fat-free mass. Body adiposity was assessed using waist circumference, body mass index standard deviation score and body fat percentage. Sports participation was assessed by a questionnaire. Aortic pulse wave velocity and augmentation index were assessed by a non-invasive oscillometric tonometry device.ResultsPeak oxygen uptake/body weight (standardised regression coefficient β −0.222, 95% confidence interval (CI) −0.386 to −0.059, P = 0.002) and peak oxygen uptake/fat-free mass (β −0.173, 95% CI −0.329 to −0.017, P = 0.030) were inversely and waist circumference directly (β 0.245, 95% CI 0.093 to 0.414, P = 0.002) associated with aortic pulse wave velocity. However, the associations of the measures of cardiorespiratory fitness with aortic pulse wave velocity were attenuated after further adjustment for waist circumference. A higher waist circumference (β −0.215, 95% CI −0.381 to −0.049, P = 0.012) and a higher body mass index standard deviation score (β 0.218, 95% CI −0.382 to −0.054, P = 0.010) were related to lower augmentation index.ConclusionsPoor cardiorespiratory fitness and higher waist circumference were associated with increased arterial stiffness in children and adolescents with chronic diseases and physical disabilities. The association between cardiorespiratory fitness and arterial stiffness was partly explained by waist circumference.

Peak oxygen uptake, ventilatory threshold, and arterial stiffness in adolescents

“…Cardiorespiratory fitness has been inversely associated with arterial stiffness (Haapala et al 2017;Pahkala et al 2013;Reed et al 2005;Sakuragi et al 2009), aortic and carotid intima media thickness (Ferreira et al 2002;Pahkala et al 2013;Melo et al 2014), and endothelial function (Hopkins et al 2009) in most but not all (Müller et al 2016) studies in children and adolescents.…”

“…V O2peak normalised for lean mass (LM) or fat free mass (FFM) has been suggested as the reference standard measure of cardiorespiratory fitness (Loftin et al 2016) but few studies have utilised this approach to study the associations of cardiorespiratory fitness with arterial stiffness. Peak workload in Watts per LM (Veijalainen et al 2016a) and V O2peak by FFM (Haapala et al 2017) have been inversely associated with arterial stiffness in children and adolescents. Furthermore, the allometric scaling of V O2peak been proposed to remove the effect of body size on V O2peak (Armstrong and Welsman 2008).…”

Editor’s presentation

“…The association between cardiorespiratory fitness and arterial stiffness was partly explained by waist circumference. 7 …”

Reproducibility of pulse wave velocity and augmentation index derived from non‐invasive occlusive oscillometric tonometry analysis in adolescents

“…Cardiorespiratory fitness has been associated inversely and adiposity directly with arterial stiffness in children and adolescents (Cote et al, 2015;Veijalainen et al, 2016;Haapala et al, 2017). However, the evidence on the modifying effect of peak oxygen uptake (V O 2peak ) and body fat percentage on the reproducibility of the measures of arterial stiffness in adolescents is limited (Lowenthal et al, 2014).…”