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(Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology. 2005;25:e20.)
© 2005 American Heart Association, Inc.

Letters to the Editor

Fitness Versus Fatness: the Debate Continues

Katherine Esposito; Raffaele Marfella; Dario Giugliano

Department of Geriatrics and Metabolic Diseases, Second University of Naples, Italy

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

To the Editor:

We read with interest the articles about the effect of exercise training on C-reactive protein (CRP) levels^1,2 and the accompanying editorial.³ Okita et al¹ showed that a 2-month period of exercise training in women with a wide range (20.4 to 39.0) of body mass index (BMI) reduced CRP concentrations independently of the magnitude of weight loss. Obisesan et al² reported that gene variants of CRP are not related to reduction of CRP levels induced by exercise training (24 weeks) in 63 sedentary men and women (prevalence of obesity not specified). Surprisingly enough, weight reduction was greater in the first study (3 kg on average) than in the second study (range of weight loss 1.1 to 1.8 kg). In none of the two studies was there any statement about the cut of daily calories at the end of the observation. This seems particularly strange as losing weight with exercise alone is more difficult because of the accompanying increase in free fat mass (muscle) which may counterbalance the decrease of fat mass. Another analysis missing was enucleating the obese group to see for a particular response of CRP levels. So, the reader continues to suspect that part of the effect of exercise training on CRP levels is related to the concomitant weight loss. Okita et al¹ stated, and we agree, that there might be an optimal pace of exercise and weight loss to optimize the inflammatory status which needs to be examined in long-term intervention studies. In any case, . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Thomas O. Obisesan

Section of Geriatrics, Department of Medicine, Howard University Hospital, Washington DC and Department of Kinesiology, University of Maryland, College Park, Md

James M. Hagberg

Department of Kinesiology, University of Maryland, College Park, Md

Koichi Okita

Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan

Hirotaka Nishijima

Sapporo Health Promotion Center, Sapporo, Japan

Takeshi Murakami

Department of Laboratory Medicine, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan