Reaction: "Prevalence and Cardiovascular Disease Correlates of Low Cardiorespiratory Fitness in Adolescents and Adults"
The fact that there is an obesity crisis in America is something that everyone seems to know but Mercedes R. Carnethon, Martha Gulati, and Philip Greenland (2005), attempted to quantify the toll that a low level of fitness can take upon the US population in their study published in the Journal of American Medicine entitled Prevalence and cardiovascular disease correlates of low cardiorespiratory fitness in adolescents and adults. The subjects of the study were individuals aged 12 through 49 years. The purpose of the study was to see if low fitness correlated to other increased Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) risk factors, including obesity and high levels of bad cholesterol, in this very wide population sampling. The age selection was quite broad, so the study could control for other fitness factors relating to age impinging upon the results. But there is an obvious weakness in using such a large sampling. The population size is so diluted and generalized in its composition that the conclusions drawn from the study may be too vague to be of prescriptive use. To conduct the study, the authors submitted the test subjects to submaximal treadmill testing so they reached at least 75% to 90% of their age-predicted maximum heart ra
The generational differences in attitudes about physical fitness might be one reason that the prevalence of low fitness levels was similar in adolescent females (34. The study does not question the accepted wisdom of previous studies, it merely adds another correlative factor, namely poor treadmill performance (defined as poor fitness ) by the study to the list of other correlative factors. Theoretically, people genetically disposed to have high BMIs could also be genetically disposed to have poor fitness and high levels of CDC. First of all, the study attempted to determine risk factors for CDC. But even though obesity and fitness was both age- and race-adjusted, total cholesterol levels and systolic blood pressure were higher and levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol were lower among participants with low vs. Low levels of fitness were defined by using percentile cut-off points of estimated VO2 max from existing external referent populations. Immediately, several problems with the study should become evident. However, the population in question was specifically selected for not having CDC, although certain elements may be determined to be of high risk for developing CDC. Overweight people with high blood pressure tend to have CDC, people with low treadmill performance tend to have high CDC, but all the study determines is correlation, not which of the variety of causative factors has the greatest impact upon the increased tendency, if it exists, to develop such an illness. (People with high levels of fitness, conversely, had the opposite medical profile, that is low BMIs, low total cholesterol, low blood pressure, and so forth).
Common topics in this essay:
Disease CVD,
Mexican Americans,
American Medicine,
Philip Greenland,
blood pressure,
low fitness,
levels fitness,
low levels,
risk factors,
cdc study,
vo2 max,
cholesterol levels,
total cholesterol,
,
total cholesterol levels,
risk factors including,
cvd risk factors,
high-density lipoprotein,
levels systolic blood,
low levels fitness,
|
Acceptance Essays
