Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Cardiometabolic Disorders Among Active Adults with Hypertension: An Epidemiological Study

Physical activity has been shown to largely affect Cardiorespiratory Fitness (CRF). High CRF is associated with a favorable cardiometabolic health profile. However, this relationship is not yet investigated exclusively in the active population with hypertension. The main aim of this study is to compare CRF between active hypertensive patients and healthy active individuals and to compare other selected cardiometabolic risk factors. This study also aims at generating predictors of CRF among active individuals. Therefore, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) database was utilized. The data analyzed were collected between 1999-2004. The weighted total number of all 1999-2004 participants was 470 million. The final weighted sample size with full data for CRF and cardiometabolic risk factors was 37.7 million where 35 million were the weight hypertensive individuals and 2.7 million were the weighted number of healthy individuals. The current study found no significant difference comparing CRF (p = 0.06) in active hypertensives (39.6 ± 0.8ml/kg/min) and active healthy individuals (41.8 ± 0.2 ml/kg/min). However, active hypertensive had a significantly higher prevalence of cardiometabolic disorders: diabetes (p <0.001) obesity (p <0.001), abnormal waist circumference (p <0.001), and smoking rates (p = 0.03). A dependent association was found between the VO2max as a measure of the CRF and hypertension. Independent association was demonstrated between CRF and age, other races, and abnormal waist circumference. Although hypertensive individuals had higher cardiometabolic disorders, the insignificant difference in CRF suggest that hypertension status is not a potential suppressor of CRF among active individuals