RT doctoral thesis
T1 Efectos de la condición física y la adiposidad sobre indicadores de salud cardiovascular en niños y adolescentes: estudio longitudinal up&down
A1 Pérez Pérez, Alejandro
A2 Didáctica de la Educación FísicaPlástica y Musical
K1 Cardiovascular diseases
K1 fitness
K1 fatness
K1 children
K1 adolescents
AB Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are theleading cause of global mortality.Normally, cardiovascular alterationsbecome visible after the fifth decade oflife, but increasing evidence suggestthat their origin may occur in earlyages. Thus, the identification ofchildren and adolescents at higher riskis of vital importance for theprevention of CVD. In this sense, thedefinition of young people at risk ofCVD is normally based on the levels ofseveral factors, including waistcircumference, triglycerides, highdensity lipoprotein-cholesterol, bloodpressure (BP), and glucose levels,among others. Nonetheless, theidentification of those at risk usingthese markers would entail a higheconomic cost, in addition tosubjecting young people to invasivemeasures. Physical fitness, specificallycardiorespiratory (CRF) and muscularfitness (MF), and fatness areconsidered key elements for thecardiovascular risk identification, giventheir close association with thepreviously mentioned markers. Both,fitness and fatness provide a quickerand relatively simple way to identifythose at risk of future CVD. However,although their association with CVDrisk factors has been previously examined, their independent andcombined effect on CVD risk factorsremain to be fully determined. Moreinformation is needed since fitnessand fatness may lay in the same causalchain leading to future CVD. Thus, themain aim of the present InternationalDoctoral Thesis was to study theindependent and combined effects ofdifferent components of physicalfitness and fatness on CVD risk factorslevels, cross-sectionally andlongitudinally (two-year follow-up), in asample of Spanish children andadolescents.The results of the eight studiesincluded indicate that body massindex (BMI) is an independentpredictor of CVD risk factors, and amediator in the association of CRF(Study I) and MF (Study II) withclustered CVD risk factors. Differentfitness cut-off points associated withreduced CVD risk two-years later havebeen identified for CRF in children(Study III) and for upper- and lowerbody MF in children and adolescents(Study IV). A bidirectional longitudinalassociation was observed betweenCRF and different fatness indicators inchildren and adolescents, but theassociations between CRF as exposureand fatness weakened when fatness atbaseline was considered (Study V). The bidirectional associations betweenCRF (Study VI) and MF (Study VII) withneck circumference (NC) were onlyobserved cross-sectionally.Longitudinally, only NC showed anindependent association with CRF andMF. Furthermore, BP measures seemto be longitudinally affected to ahigher extent by NC than by CRF(Study VI) and MF (Study VII). Finally,waist circumference, but neither CRFnor MF, is independently associatedwith future BP and its changes overtwo years (Study VIII).The results from the present thesisenhance our knowledge on thecombined and independent effects offitness and fatness on CVD risk factors.In addition, it provides fitness cut-offpoints for the identification of thosechildren and adolescents at a higherrisk of future CVD.
YR 2021
FD 2021
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10498/28991
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10498/28991
LA eng
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Cádiz
RD 10-may-2026