This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on Web of Science (2)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Exercise  • Obesity  • Quality of Life  • Randomized Controlled Trial  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

A Randomized Controlled Trial

Corby K. Martin, PhD; Timothy S. Church, MD, MPH, PhD; Angela M. Thompson, MSPH; Conrad P. Earnest, PhD; Steven N. Blair, PED

Arch Intern Med. 2009;169(3):269-278.

Background  Improved quality of life (QOL) is a purported benefit of exercise, but few randomized controlled trials and no dose-response trials have been conducted to examine this assertion.

Methods  The effect of 50%, 100%, and 150% of the physical activity recommendation on QOL was examined in a 6-month randomized controlled trial. Participants were 430 sedentary postmenopausal women (body mass index range, 25.0-43.0 [calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared]) with elevated systolic blood pressure randomized to a nonexercise control group (n = 92) or 1 of 3 exercise groups: exercise energy expenditure of 4 (n = 147), 8 (n = 96), or 12 (n = 95) kilocalories per kilogram of body weight per week. Eight aspects of physical and mental QOL were measured at baseline and month 6 with the use of the Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short Form Health Survey.

Results  Change in all mental and physical aspects of QOL, except bodily pain, was dose dependent (trend analyses were significant, and exercise dose was a significant predictor of QOL change; P < .05). Higher doses of exercise were associated with larger improvements in mental and physical aspects of QOL. Controlling for weight change did not attenuate the exercise-QOL association.

Conclusion  Exercise-induced QOL improvements were dose dependent and independent of weight change.

Trial Registration  clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00011193

Author Affiliations: Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Louisiana State University System, Baton Rouge (Drs Martin, Church, and Earnest and Ms Thompson); Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, Columbia (Dr Blair); and Department of Kinesiology, Health Promotion, and Recreation, University of North Texas, Denton (Dr Blair).

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Long-Term Fish Intake Is Associated With Less Severe Depressive Symptoms Among Elderly Men and Women: The MEDIS (MEDiterranean ISlands Elderly) Epidemiological Study
Bountziouka et al.
J Aging Health 2009;21:864-880.
ABSTRACT  

Concussion sans frontieres
Dvorak et al.
Br. J. Sports. Med. 2009;43:i1-i2.
FULL TEXT