The Association Between the American College of Sports Medicine Recommended Aerobic Exercise and Healthy Behavior, Disease Incidence, Activity Restriction, Quality of Life, and Hematological Profile in the Elderly

Abstract

Abstract Background Regular exercise in the elderly is essential for healthy aging and has a profound relationship with mental health. Aim In this study, the relationship between exercise status by age group and health, health behaviors, and health perceptions of the elderly were investigated. Methods This study included 641 elderly men aged 65 to 80 years who participated in the 2018 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Participants were divided into exercise and non-exercise groups by age (65–69 years, 70–74 years, 75–80 years). The exercise group engaged in ≥ 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity, 75 minutes of high-intensity physical activity, or a mixture of moderate-intensity and high-intensity physical activity (1 min of high-intensity equals 2 minutes of moderate-intensity) per week. It was selected as the elderly in practice. The smoking rate, alcohol consumption rate, nutritional intake, sedentary lifestyle time, uncomfortable days in the past 2 weeks, outpatient use frequency, weekdays and weekend sleep time, blood pressure, resting heart rate, and blood analysis results were analyzed according to exercise status and age group. An independent t-test was conducted to determine the differences in components, activity restriction (activity restriction, discomfort for the last 2 weeks), daily stress perception, subjective health status, quality of life (QoL), health check-up rate, subjective figure recognition, and disease incidence rate (obesity, diabetes, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, hypertriglyceridemia) and then cross-analyzed to determine whether there was a relationship with exercise. Results The results of this study showed that the aerobic exercises recommended by the American College of Sports Medicines had a positive relationship with the smoking rate, nutrition (energy intake, protein intake, dietary fiber intake), activity restrictions, QoL (exercise ability, daily activities, anxiety/depression), and hemodynamic variables (hemoglobin A1c) of the elderly, and it confirmed that the differences in health benefits between the exercise and non-exercise groups increased with age. Conclusion It was confirmed that the amount of exercise recommended by ACSM is an appropriate amount of exercise for elderly people