Abstract 

Background: Knowledge regarding young individuals' physical activity habits and blood lipid levels can be useful to determine possible risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD). CVD was responsible for 32% of all global deaths in 2019 and is the most common cause of death in Sweden. This is mainly due to complications of atherosclerosis which is a multifaceted condition that progresses over a long time. CardioChek Plus is a portable instrument that can reliably measure blood lipid levels and give quick results, in combination with a global physical activity questionnaire one can easily screen individuals and provide valuable information for CVD prevention. Aim: The purpose of this study was to investigate how different physical activity levels and time spent sedentary correlate with total cholesterol, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and the ratio of total cholesterol/ high-density lipoprotein cholesterol in healthy Swedish males and females aged 18-25.

Method: Fifteen healthy Swedish males and females aged 18-25 were recruited to participate in this cross sectional study. All tests were made during one occasion in the movement lab at Halmstad University. Data was collected from GPAQ to measure physical activity levels, CardioChek Plus for the blood lipids and InBody 770 to measure body composition. Statistical analyses were performed using Pearson’s and Spearman’s for correlation and ANOVA for linear regression analysis.

Results: 15 young adults participated in the study and consisted of 10 women and 5 men with a varying level of physical activity with a median of 3240 MET minutes/week (IQR 2060, 4540). The primary findings were a moderate correlation between time sedentary and triglyceride concentration (r=0.623) and a unstandardized β-value of 13.8 (CI=2.2-25.5) p= 0.024, which entails that TG is expected to increase by 13.8mg/dl for every unit of time spend sedentary. No relevant associations between physical activity and blood lipid concentrations were found in our tests. 

Conclusion: In the studied population, time spent being sedentary was a more important factor for triglyceride levels than volume of physical activity. This suggests that one who wants to decrease their risk of developing CVD may benefit from reducing sedentary time rather than increasing physical activity. Further studies may benefit from a larger population size with a broader range of physical activity levels.