Effects of exercise in overweight Japanese with multiple cardiovascular risk factors.

Purpose: The effects of exercise in subjects with multiple cardiovascular risk factors (RF) have never been tested in a large-scale randomized controlled trial. The favorable results from our observational study led to this randomized controlled trial.

Methods: The participants, recruited from a community, were overweight, with two of the following three risk factors: hypertension, hyperlipidemia, or glucose intolerance (N=561; 44% male; mean age (SD) 67 (6); mean BMI 26.

Sapporo Fitness Club Trial (SFCT)--design, recruitment and implementation of a randomized controlled trial to test the efficacy of exercise at a fitness club for the reduction of cardiovascular risk factor--.

Background: The annual health check followed by lifestyle recommendations has long been the standard national strategy to improve cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in Japan. Exercise at fitness clubs, now widely accessible in major cities, has a novel appeal as a strategy with the additive effect of CVD risk reduction. The Sapporo Fitness Club Trial (SFCT) is a randomized controlled trial to compare the efficacy of the national standard alone (control) with the standard plus exercise at a fitness club (intervention) for the reduction of CVD risk factors.

Skeletal muscle metabolism limits exercise capacity in patients with chronic heart failure.

Background: Several studies have indicated that skeletal muscle is important in determining the exercise capacity of patients with chronic heart failure (CHF). However, this theory has been investigated only in experiments based on local exercise involving a small muscle mass. We investigated skeletal muscle metabolism during maximal systemic exercise to determine whether muscle metabolism limits exercise capacity in patients with CHF.