Economic Analysis of Primary Care-Based Physical Activity Counseling in Older Men: The VA-LIFE Trial.

Objectives: To perform an economic evaluation of a primary care-based physical activity counseling intervention that improved physical activity levels and rapid gait speed in older veterans.

Design: Secondary objective of randomized trial that assessed the effect of exercise counseling (relative to usual care) on physical performance, physical activity, function, disability, and medical resource use and cost.

Setting: Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina.

Endothelial Progenitor Cell Levels Predict Future Physical Function: An Exploratory Analysis From the VA Enhanced Fitness Study.

Background: Levels of circulating progenitor cells (CPCs) are depleted with aging and chronic injury and are associated with level of physical functioning; however, little is known about the correlation of CPCs with longer-term measures of physical capabilities. We sought to determine the association of CPCs with future levels of physical function and with changes in physical function over time.

Methods: CPCs were measured in 117 participants with impaired glucose tolerance in the Enhanced Fitness clinical trial based on the cell surface markers CD34 and CD133 and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) activity at baseline, 3 months, and 12 months.

Differences between completely physically inactive and low active older men and their response to an exercise intervention: the Veterans LIFE study.

Background: Physical activity interventions typically do not report behavioral changes in activity sub-groups. The aim of this study was to compare baseline differences and changes in physical activity between truly physically inactive men and low active men enrolled in a twelve-month, home-based physical activity intervention.

Methods: Veterans with a mean age of 77.

Depletion of circulating progenitor cells precedes overt diabetes: a substudy from the VA enhanced fitness trial.

Background: One theory of aging and disease development is that chronic injury (pathology) results in activation of regenerative processes and initial repair, with overt disease arising only after exhaustion of reparative capability leads to inadequate repair. While depletion of circulating progenitor cells (CPCs) has been noted in diabetes, the degree to which CPC depletion predates and is associated with propensity to develop overt disease is unclear.

Methods: The Enhanced Fitness trial enrolled overweight/obese (body mass index >25) sedentary patients with glucose intolerance but without overt diabetes.

Lower levels of circulating progenitor cells are associated with low physical function and performance in elderly men with impaired glucose tolerance: a pilot substudy from the VA Enhanced Fitness trial.

Background: Aging is marked by a decline in physical function. Although the biological underpinnings for this remain unclear, loss of regenerative capacity has been proposed as one cause of the loss of physical function that occurs over time. The quantity of circulating progenitor cells (CPCs) may be one reflection of regenerative capability.

Enhanced fitness: a randomized controlled trial of the effects of home-based physical activity counseling on glycemic control in older adults with prediabetes mellitus.

Objectives: To determine whether a home-based multicomponent physical activity counseling (PAC) intervention is effective in reducing glycemic measures in older outpatients with prediabetes mellitus.

Design: Controlled clinical trial.

Setting: Primary care clinics of the Durham Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center between September 29, 2008, and March 25, 2010.

Lessons learned when innovations go awry: a baseline description of a behavioral trial-the Enhancing Fitness in Older Overweight Veterans with Impaired Fasting Glucose study.

Individuals diagnosed with impaired glucose tolerance (i.e., prediabetes) are at increased risk for developing diabetes.

The Veterans Learning to Improve Fitness and Function in Elders Study: a randomized trial of primary care-based physical activity counseling for older men.

Objectives: To determine the effects of primary care-based, multicomponent physical activity counseling (PAC) promoting physical activity (PA) guidelines on gait speed and related measures of PA and function in older veterans.

Design: Randomized controlled trial.

Setting: Veterans Affairs Medical Center of Durham, North Carolina.

Effect of physical activity guidelines on physical function in older adults.

Objectives: To determine whether elderly people who meet national guidelines have higher physical function (PF) scores than those who do not and the effect on functional trajectory when physical activity (PA) levels change from above to below this threshold, or vice versa.

Design: Pooled data.

Setting: Two 6-month randomized controlled trials aimed at increasing PA in adults.