Effects of smoking and aerobic exercise on male college students' metabolic syndrome risk factors.
Jee-Youn Kim, Yuhao Yang, Young-Je Sim
PMID 29706714WHAT IT FOUND
8 weeks of basketball did not show clear changes in lipids or glucose, but it lowered waist size in exercising smokers and non-smokers and lowered blood pressure only in exercising non-smokers.
Smoking students who did not exercise had increases in blood pressure and waist size.
Key findings
01Waist circumference decreased in both exercise groups, including smokers, increased in non-exercise smokers, and did not significantly change in non-exercise non-smokers.
02Systolic and diastolic blood pressure decreased in exercise non-smokers and increased in non-exercise smokers, with no significant change in exercise smokers or non-exercise non-smokers.
03Fasting glucose, triglycerides, and HDL-C did not show significant differences over time between groups.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
Only 23 young male students with no medical history were studied, so the findings may not apply to women, older adults, or people with established metabolic syndrome. Each group had only 5 or 6 participants, so the results are fragile and could be affected by small individual changes. The paper does not state which outcome was primary, and it reported several blood pressure, waist, glucose, and lipid outcomes, so some positive findings may not hold if the study were repeated. The paper does not describe blinding, so it is unclear whether group knowledge affected measurements. The paper reports smoking history over more than 5 years but not daily cigarette amount, and the authors suggest 8 weeks may be too short for lipid changes.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflict of interest. No funding source is reported.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that smoking is harmless if a person exercises, or that basketball treats metabolic syndrome. The sample was small and healthy, glucose and lipid outcomes showed no clear change, and blood pressure improvement was seen only in non-smokers who exercised.