Determination of physical activity level of individuals with Metabolic Syndrome

Introduction: The Metabolic Syndrome and its components are closely associated with lifestyle factors, including low physical activity level. It is known that physical activity is an important factor in both formation and conservation of metabolic syndrome. The increase of obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia and type 2 diabetes in recent days made metabolic syndrome to become a vital health problem all over the world.Purpose: The purpose of the study is to determine the physical activity levels of individuals with metabolic syndrome.Method: Physical activity levels of 25 individuals consulted to Department of Endocrinology in Dokuz Eylül University Hospital and diagnosed as metabolic syndrome were assessed and compared to 25 healthy subjects who had similar demographic features.Patients? demographic features, body composition (height, weight, BMI, waist circumference, hip circumference, waist/hip ratio and body fat percentage); biochemical values (glucose, HDL-C, LDL-C, total cholesterol and triglyserid), blood pressure and physical activity levels were assessed. SPSS 15.0 program was used for statistical analysis.Results: There was no statistically significant difference between the demographic features of two groups such as age, gender, marital status, education level, occupation and alcohol (p>0.05), but there was a statistically significant difference in living place between two groups (p<0.05).When the body composition of the subjects are compared, there was no statistically significant difference between two groups in parameters of height (p>0.05). Statistically significant difference was found in terms of weight, BMI, waist circumference, hip circumference and waist/hip ratio (p<0.05).Physical activity was assessed by IPAQ and statistically significant difference was found between the groups in terms of physical activity levels (p<0.05).There was no statistically significant relationship between physical activity and all parameters except for age, body fat percentage and LDL-C in individuals with metabolic syndrome. We found a significant negative correlation between physical activity level and both age (p: 0.001, r: -0.613) and body fat percentage (p: 0.03, r: -0.435) in metabolic syndrome group. There was also a significant positive correlation between LDL-C and physical activity (p: 0.04, r: 0.406) in metabolic syndrome group.When the distribution of physical activity levels (low, moderate, high) of subjects in both groups were compared, the number of subjects with low physical activity level in metabolic syndrome group was significantly higher than healthy group. Similarly, it was observed that the number of individuals of not MetS who had high physical activity level was significantly higher than individuals of MetS (p<0.05).Conclusion: It was concluded that physical activity level of individuals with metabolic syndrome is lower than healthy individuals.Key Words: Metabolic Syndrome, Physical Activity, Body Composition