Association between Physical Activity and Metabolic Syndrome in an Urban Adult Population of Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) affects quality of life; however, the effect of environmental factors various on MetS is not uniform across the cultures as evinced by the diverse prevalence rates. These risk factors are collectively under the influence of nutrition, lifestyle and consequent to increasing affluence, urbanization, industrialization, mechanization, rural-to-urban migration, habits of smoking, alcoholic consumption, and physically inactive etc. Although many studies have reported an association between self-reported physical activity (PA) and MetS, there is limited information on the optimal levels of PA required to prevent MetS. Present study aimed to assess the association between PA and MetS among urban adult population of Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh. A cross-sectional survey was conducted amongst 802 adults (421 men & 381 women). PA levels were categorised by World Health Organisation criteria (2010) and MetS was defined using the modified NCEP ATP III criteria (2002). Of the study participants, 32% had MetS. Mild PA subjects had high percent of MetS (44-49%) compared to heavy PA subjects (19-18%) in both women and men. Subjects with MetS had lesser physical actively levels compared to their counterparts (p<0.05) in both genders. Mean levels of SBP, FBG, and TG were gradually decreased from mild to heavy PAlevels (p<0.05). Heavy PA was characterized by a significant elevation in HDL-c levels when compared to mild activity (p<0.05). The odds ratio of PA showed that moderate subjects were 3 times and mild activity subjects were 8 times at risk in the elevation of MetS risk factors. The majority of the adults who had the habituation of lesser PA were at risk in the elevation of MetS and it was inferred that involving in heavy PA may reduce the burden of developing MetS.