Asociación entre aptitud cardiorrespiratoria y riesgo cardiovascular en el ingreso a la carrera de Educación Física

Objective To study the relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness and cardiovascular risk factors cluster in young adults. Methodology The subjects of this study were 278 males and 151 females between 18 and 25 years of age whose intention was to start the Physical Education course of study in 2012 and 2013. A cross-sectional correlational design was used. Cardiorespitary fitness was assessed with the Course Navette test and then the cardiovascular risk factors cluster in the group with the highest level of cardiorespiratory fitness (upper quartile) was compared to the group with lowest fitness. The cardiovascular risk factors studied were cholesterol, high density lipoprotein cholesterol, glycemia, systolic blood pressure, and sum of five skinfolds. The sample was divided in three subgroups: subjects without risk factors, with one or two risk factors, and with three o more. The Chi-square test was used to establish any association between cardiorespiratory fitness and risk factors cluster. Results Both men and women with a low cardiorespiratory fitness were significantly associated with clustering of risk factors (p<0.05). Conclusions In this sample of young Argentinean people, the risk factor profile is more favorable the higher their cardiorespiratory fitness is.