Regular swimming session improves metabolic syndrome risk factors in women and men from Palestine: Quasi-experimental study

Abstract

Background: Swimming and other aquatic fitness are important aerobic exercises that have been proposed as an effective nonpharmacological approach in the management of type 2 diabetes (T2DM), hyperlipidemia, and hypertension (HTN). The current study aimed to assess the effect of long-term swimming sessions on glycemic and lipidemic parameters, body composition, and hemodynamic responses for patients with metabolic risk factors. Methods: Forty participants from both genders with T2DM and HTN (aged 52.4±5.5 yrs) agreed to take part in this quasi-experimental study and were divided into two groups. The first group included the participants who performed long-term swimming sessions and the second group served as the reference. The first group exercised for 2 h, 3 times/week in 29-33 ◦C swimming pool for 16 weeks. While the reference group did not participate in any kind of exercise and advised to keep on with their normal lifestyle. All the obtained metabolic syndrome risk factors data were analyzed using a paired t-test which was applied to separately determine the differences between pre- and post-tests for both genders and groups, and the percentage of change (Δ %) was computed. Independent t-test was applied to determine the differences in the post-tests (Exp. vs Ref) in men patients as well as for women separately. Results: The results showed that there were statistically significant differences at p ≤ 0.05 between pre- and post- exercise concerning Total Cholesterol (TC), High-Density Lipoproteins (HDL), Low-Density Lipoproteins (LDL), Triglycerides (TG), glycemic parameters, systolic and diastolic blood pressures, body mass index (BMI) and fat mass percent in favor of posttests in the experimental group for both genders. Whereas, no significant differences were found at p≤0.05 between pre- and post-tests for all studied variables in the reference group for both genders. Significant differences were found at p≤0.05 on the post-tests in favor of the experimental for both genders.Conclusion: Findings of the current study suggested that the regular 16 weeks of the conducted swimming sessions could be considered as nonpharmacological approaches in the management of T2DM and HTN.