Relationship between physical fitness and lifestyle behaviour in healthy young men.

Background: There is substantial knowledge about the inverse association of physical fitness and CVD risk factors and CVD mortality. However, physical fitness per se might be influenced by lifestyle conditions such as physical training, smoking and drinking habits.

Hypothesis: We evaluated the relationship between physical fitness, physical activity, endurance training, smoking and drinking habits and blood pressure, lipids and leukocytes as surrogate cardiovascular risk markers in a large-scale cross-sectional study of healthy young men.