Effects of Nutrition and Exercise Education on Fat Mass and Blood Lipid Profile in Postmenopausal Obese Women

Kim, Nae Hee; Kim, Ji Myung; Kim, Hyesook; Chang, Namsoo

Abstract

Obesity is an independent risk factor for coronary artery disease in the postmenopausal women, which may be mediated by alteration of blood lipid metabolism. We are aimed to evaluate the effects of low energy diet, restriction of high fat foods and exercise education on weight, fat mass and blood lipid profile. Fifteen postmenopausal obese women were studied. Subjects received detailed advice about how to achieve a reduction of weight by a low-energy diet (1,200 kcal ), restriction of high fat food and increased exercise in every 4 wks during 8 wk. To evaluate the effectiveness for education programs, dietary fat habit and daily nutrient intakes, exercise were tested before and after intervention. An-thropometry, computerized tomography, and blood lipid profile were assessed before and after intervention. According to the nutrition education, energy intake (from 1776.1 +/- 28.2 kcal to 1268.7 +/-115.2 kcal, p <0.001 )and percent of energy from fat (21.9%, p <0.01 )were significantly decreased. However, the index of nutritional quality was over 1.0. On the contrary, exercise (from 341.3 +/-222.1 kcal to 569.4 +/-309.8 kcal, p <0.05 )was increased and dietary fat habit scores (from 30.8 +/-5.2 to 36.1 +/-3.0, p <0.01 )were improved. Also, body weight (4.2%, p <0.001 ), BMI (4.5%, p <0.001 ), body fat mass (3.4%, p <0.05 )and waist to hip ratio (1.1%, p <0.05 )were decreased. Among abdominal fat, visceral fat (26.1%, p <0.05 )and subcutaneous fat (14.8%, p <0.01 )were decreased. But there was no difference in visceral fat to subcutaneous fat ratio. We observed HDL-cholesterol increase (11.7%, p <0.05 ), triglyceride reduction (14.8%, p <0.05 )and atherogenic index improvement (from 2.7 +/-0.7 to 2.3 +/-0.7, p <0.05 ). However, there was no change in LDL-cholesterol and total cholesterol. Theses results showed that low energy diet, restriction of high fat foods and exercise education could result in reduction of body weight, fat mass, visceral and subcutaneous fat, and in improvement of blood lipid profile in the postmenopausal obese women.