Attività
Physical Activity, Obesity and Health
Physical inactivity, metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance and diabetes
Riccardo Bonadonna,
Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche e Chirurgiche, Università degli Studi di Verona e Ospedale Civile Maggiore di Verona
The interaction between westernized lifestyle and human genome has triggered a worldwide epidemics of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. A specific cluster of these entities is named “metabolic syndrome” and is believed to account for a sizeable amount of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, which is not accounted for by classic cardiovascular risk factors. At the heart of the “metabolic syndrome” lies insulin resistance, which is possibly the most powerful biological transducer of the detrimental effects that westernization exerts on cardiovascular health. Westernization can be split in many single factors. Among these, physical inactivity has gained much attention as a risk factor of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease in observational studies. Furthermore, physical inactivity per se causes insulin resistance. In intervention studies, improvement of physical inactivity is effective, for instance, in preventing diabetes, but its effect does not seem to add to the other main modifiable risk factors of westernization, i.e. diet. On the other hand, in the clinical arena fat people, especially the younger ones, are often resilient to modify their eating habits, but may be more willing to increase substantially their physical activity. It remains to be firmly established whether the inducement of a “fit-fat” phenotype is enough to counterbalance the risk excess of cardiovascular morbidity and/or mortality conveyed by obesity and obesity-related diseases.
