The Effect of a Community-Based, Primary Health Care Exercise Program on Inflammatory Biomarkers and Hormone Levels

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyze the impact of a community-based exercise program in primary care on inflammatory biomarkers and hormone levels. The 1-year quasiexperimental study involved 13 women (mean age = 56.8 ± 11.4 years) and it was developed in two basic health care units in Rio Claro City, Brazil. The physical exercise intervention was comprised of two, 60-minute sessions/week. The inflammatory biomarkers were measured at baseline, 6 months, and 1 year. Repeated measures ANOVA analyses indicated that the intervention was effective in reducing CRP and TNFα after 1 year compared to baseline and 6 months (P < 0.05). There were no changes in IL10, IL6, and insulin after 1 year. However, leptin significantly increased at 1 year (P = 0.016). The major finding of this study is that a community-based exercise program can result in a decrease or maintenance of inflammatory biomarkers after 1 year, and thus has the potential to be a viable public health approach for chronic disease prevention.

Programas de promoção da atividade física no Sistema Único de Saúde brasileiro: revisão sistemática

“…Em relação às avaliações dos programas de AF, os artigos selecionados indicaram que ao menos uma avaliação foi realizada, seja esta por meio de dados descritivos 11,[12][13][14]19,20 , do processo 21,22 , do impacto [21][22][23][24][25] e/ou resultados 21,23,[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31] .…”

“…Nos estudos realizados em UBS, o recebimento de aconselhamento para AF foi mais reportado entre aqueles que possuem hipertensão arterial sistêmica e excesso de peso, utilizam medicamentos e frequentam o programa Academia da Saúde 31 . Nos estudos desenvolvidos na cidade de Rio Claro-SP, os frequentadores do programa reportaram melhorias na percepção de qualidade de vida, redução do número de visitas nas UBS e a redução na pressão arterial e glicemia 29 .…”

Promotion of physical activity in primary health care settings: evaluation of the Saúde Ativa Rio Claro program

“…Most of existing studies in primary health care have analyzed association of participation and physical fitness, inflammatory biomarkers or use of health services [25][26][27] . They are descriptive, qualitative, cross sectional or quasi-experimental studies with small samples [9][10]14,15,28,29 .…”

Comment on “The Effect of a Community‐Based, Primary Health Care Exercise Program on Inflammatory Biomarkers and Hormone Levels”

“…Also obesity is related to elevated serum levels of some inflammatory markers, such as leptin, TNF- α , and CRP [ 3 , 4 ]. Because of high prevalence of these conditions, we believe that these situations may have a role in the results of the paper by C. B. Papini et al [ 1 ].…”

“…We read with great interest the recent paper by C. B. Papini et al in which the authors examined “impact of a community-based exercise program in primary care on inflammatory biomarkers and hormone levels” in the 1-year quasiexperimental study [ 1 ]. The authors very clearly discussed the relation between exercise and inflammation.…”