Relationship of physical activity and metabolic syndrome in penitentiary agents of BH, MG. 57Rev Bras Ativ Fis e Saúde • Pelotas • 17(1):57-63 • Fev/2012 ORIGINAL Abstract ResumoThe prison population in Brazil has been growing. The prison agent (PA) is the professional who works in the security sector, having the tasks of conducting prisoners and vigilance inside the facilities, and escorting the prisoners to outside, as well. The agents have a busy and stressing life and they do not have time and facilities to physical exercise practice. Therefore, the objective was to relate the prevalence of physical exercise with metabolic syndrome, with trace and state anxiety, and with minor psychological disturbs in agents in Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil. Also habits of life, physical exercise and clinical parameters were characterized. One hundred and one agents took part in this study, as volunteers, from 3 diff erent prison units. The male average (n=76) age and standard deviation of the sample was 33.1±5.7 years old and 4.8±3.4 years working as PA. It was evident that the majority uses alcoholic beverages (63%) and 97.3% classifi ed their job as very dangerous. Considering males, where the greater alterations in MS factors were found, smokers represented 26.3% and altered glucose concentration was present in 27.6% of the sample. Smaller values were found (p<0.05) for: glucose in agents who practice (101.0±14.9 mg·dl -1 ) compared with non practitioners (111.9±21.5 mg·dl -1 ) and arterial pressure (122.3±8.0 and 131.3±11,5 mmHg, respectively). Body mass index (BMI) in practitioners and non practitioners were 26.4±3.8 and 29.6±6.1 kg·m -2 , and waist circumference 91.6±9.7 and 99.7±16.7 cm, respectively, were also smaller (p<0,05). It was concluded that there were greater alterations in the metabolic profi le in males non practitioners of physical exercise in the three prisons institutions studied, because it was found systolic arterial pressure, BMI, waist circumference and blood glucose with statistically signifi cant diff erent values (p<0.05) compared with practitioners of physical activity.