Abdominal and total body fat loss linked to regular exercise.

2003 FEB 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Regular exercise, such as brisk walking, reduces total and intra-abdominal body fat among overweight and obese postmenopausal women, a study by a Yale researcher has found.

"Previously sedentary postmenopausal women who exercised for more than 195 minutes per week lost 6.9% of intra-abdominal body fat and maintained their energy intake during the 12-month study, compared with less significant losses and even gains among women in the control group," said lead author Melinda Irwin, assistant professor in the department of epidemiology and public health at Yale School of Medicine.

Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the study looked at 173 physically inactive postmenopausal women between the ages of 50 and 75 living in Seattle from 1997 to 2001. Participants were randomized to a group that did exercise of moderate intensity 5 days a week or a group that only stretched 1 day a week. The researchers measured changes in body weight, total body fat, intra-abdominal body fat, and subcutaneous-abdominal body fat at the start of the study and after 1 year.

"While weight loss was modest (a loss of 1.3 kg or 1.6% over 12 months), intra-abdominal body fat loss, measured by computed tomography - a gold standard of assessing abdominal body fat, was considerable at 5.8% and dose-dependent," Irwin said. "Women randomized to the exercise group who increased their fitness level by more than 16% lost 10.8% of intra-abdominal body fat."

Irwin noted that unlike diet-induced weight loss, exercise-induced weight loss increases fitness levels. "In our study, 84% of the exercisers improved their cardiorespiratory fitness level," she said. "High levels of fitness reduce the rate of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, independent of obesity."

Irwin said that the increasing prevalence of obesity is a major public health concern. Over half of the ...