Effect of Aerofic Exercise on Functional Capacity in Asymptomatic Coronary Artery Disease Risk Factors Subjects

Aim&Objective: Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) accounted for 43% in India in 2001and the burden of this chronic non-communicable disease is going to increase day by day. Moreover, current prediction estimate that by the year 2020, CAD will become the leading global cause of total disease burden in the form of mortality and morbidity. Fortunately, Coronary Heart Disease can be prevented or controlled. This fact sheet gives an overview of Coronary Heart Disease and its prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. This study is a part of cardiovascular disease preventive rehabilitation program and is based on three time-honored classical coronary heart disease (CHD) risk factors: hypertension stage-1, overweight, and smoking.

Methods: Sample of 30 asymptomatic subjects with 30-40 years age group were allocated and assigned into three groups- Overweight Group(OWG), Smoking (SM) and Hypertensive Group (HTG). Vo2 Max,Heart rate, blood pressure were measured by treadmill test and pacer test to compare the effect of four weeks endurance exercise training period. Data was analyzed by using SPSS. T-test and ANOVA was used. The level of significance was set at p>0.05.

Results: esults of our study suggested that four weeks of aerobic exercise training improve the aerobic capacity in all the three cardiac risk factor groups' subjects. The mean difference of all the three groups shows significant changes in aerobic capacity (VO2 max&pacer test) in four week training of a proper schedule and protocol. The aerobic exercises show marked changes in overweight subjects followed by hypertension subject and the least in smokers.

Discussion: Present study results provide important clues in understanding the cause for low aerobic capacity (VO2max and pacer test) in smokers is due to not stopping smoking. Result of this study has proved the beneficial effects of aerobic exercise training to improve functional aerobic capacity in all risk factors groups . So aerobic exercise may be prescribed as regular therapy for long period of time to all risk factors for a better future health out come. Results of our study have suggested that pacer test can be used to check the improvement in aerobic capacity.

Conclusion: Aerobic exercise is the basic tools of preventive cardiac rehabilitation to protect the heart against harmful cardiac events by improving the aerobic capacity and main emphasis must be given on smoking group rehabilitation.