Elham Shakoor; Payman Izadpanah; Mohsen Salesi; Farhad Daryanoosh; Ahmad Mehrez
Abstract
Cardiovascular diseases are known to be the leading cause of death around the world, accounting for more than 17 million deaths annually. The main cause of this type of disease is high blood pressure. Prevention and treatment of hypertension are of great importance given the high prevalence and side ...
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Cardiovascular diseases are known to be the leading cause of death around the world, accounting for more than 17 million deaths annually. The main cause of this type of disease is high blood pressure. Prevention and treatment of hypertension are of great importance given the high prevalence and side effects of high blood pressure. Research has shown that high blood pressure (BP) is a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. Hypertension (HTN), or a chronic increase in arterial blood pressure, affects one billion people all over the world annually and is the main factor for mortality of about 7 million people globally, which imposes a significant financial and public burden on societies. That said, 33% of adults in the world are afflicted with HTN, whose incidence of course increases with age.
Monireh Toosi; Marzieh Akbarzadeh
Abstract
Background: Exercise can play a major role in health during pregnancy. Therefore, it is essential to consider the physiological conditions of females regarding the exercise.
Objectives: The present study aimed to determine the effect of a cycle of exercises on pregnancy outcomes.
Methods: In this clinical ...
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Background: Exercise can play a major role in health during pregnancy. Therefore, it is essential to consider the physiological conditions of females regarding the exercise.
Objectives: The present study aimed to determine the effect of a cycle of exercises on pregnancy outcomes.
Methods: In this clinical trial, 120 pregnant females referring to Shiraz hospitals in 2015 were randomly divided into the intervention and control groups. The intervention group subjects were required to do aerobic exercises for eight weeks since the 20th week of gestation in addition to receiving the routine care. However, mothers in the control group only received the routine pregnancy care. Then, pregnancy outcomes such as length of pregnancy, delivery phases, type of delivery and infants’ physiological indexes such as Apgar score, weight, height and head circumference were measured. Finally, the data were transferred into the SPSS statistical software and analyzed using T-test and Chi-square test.
Results: The two study groups were similar based on their age, level of education, income, employment status and satisfaction with their husbands. Also, no significant difference was observed between the two groups regarding the length of pregnancy, weight, height and Apgar score at birth. However, a significant difference was observed between the two groups concerning type of delivery, duration of active phase of delivery and pain intensity in the active phase of delivery. In addition, back pain intensity significantly decreased in the intervention group, but increased with progress in pregnancy in the control group.
Conclusions: Special attention is paid to supportive methods such as exercising during pregnancy in the recent years. Exercising has positive effects on mothers and infants health. Thus, these exercises are recommended to be incorporated in pregnancy care.
Sayyede Marzieh Ketabipoor; Maryam Koushkie Jahromi
Abstract
Background: Menopause is associated with increasing incidence of cardiovascular disease, and different exercise regimens can variously affect different cardiovascular risk factors.
Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of an aerobic exercise in water on serum estrogen, C-reactive ...
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Background: Menopause is associated with increasing incidence of cardiovascular disease, and different exercise regimens can variously affect different cardiovascular risk factors.
Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of an aerobic exercise in water on serum estrogen, C-reactive protein (CRP) and body mass index (BMI) levels in obese and normal weight postmenopausal women.
Patients and Methods: This quasi-experimental study comprised 29 volunteer non-athletic postmenopausal women with mean age 57.04 ± 4.68 years. The study subjects were divided into two groups of obese (n = 15; BMI = 30.21 ± 3.89) and normal weight (n = 14; BMI = 22.43 ± 2.45) according to their BMI. The subjects of both groups participated in aquatic exercise training for 8 weeks, 3 sessions a week, with progressive intensity of 50 to 70 percent of maximum heart rate for 45 minutes between 10-11 am. The blood samples were taken the day before and two days after the exercise sessions through the left brachial vein. Wilcoxon signed ranks test and Mann-Whitney test were used for data analysis.
Results: In the obese and normal weight groups exercise caused significant increase in estrogen (P=0.001, P = 0.001, respectively) and decreased the BMI (P = 0.009, P = 0.003, respectively); however, CRP decreased significantly when compared to pre exercise in the normal weight group (P = 0.005), No statistically significant change was observed in the obese group (P = 0.084). There was no significant difference in estrogen (P = 0.32), BMI (P = 0.62) and CRP (P = 0.35) changes following exercise between obese and normal weight groups.
Conclusions: In the present study, aquatic aerobic exercise caused similar reduction in some cardiovascular risk factors among obese and normal weight postmenopausal women. However, future studies are recommended for more clarification.
