Longitudinal change in cardiorespiratory fitness and the association with cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality in young Asian men: a cohort study.

Introduction: Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) in young adulthood is a determinant of chronic disease risk. To better understand whether CRF might also behave as a modifiable risk factor, we examined the associations between longitudinal changes in 2.4 km run times and health outcomes in a cohort of healthy young men.

Methods: Our dataset comprised individual run times and health outcomes captured in four national registries. Cox proportional hazards models were used to examine the association between baseline run times and relative hazards of first major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) and all-cause mortality (ACM). Relative hazards associated with longitudinal change in run times were estimated using models that were adjusted for run-time at baseline.

Results: The study sample comprised 148 825 healthy men ages 18-34 years who had undergone at least two routine fitness tests that were 5-9 years apart. During 1 294 778 person-years of follow-up, we observed 1275 first MACE and 764 ACM events occurring at mean ages of 43.2 (SD 6.0) years and 39.2 (SD 6.6) years, respectively. A 1% increase in run-time per annum was associated with a 1.13 (95% CI 1.10 to 1.16) times greater hazard of first MACE and a 1.06 (95% CI 1.02 to 1.10) times greater hazard of ACM. The association between longitudinal change in run times and first MACE was preserved in sensitivity analyses using models adjusted for body mass index at baseline.

Conclusion: Among men under the age of 35 years, longitudinal change in run times was associated with the risk of cardiovascular disease two decades onwards.