Relationship of “weekend warrior” and regular physical activity patterns with metabolic syndrome and its associated diseases among Chinese rural adults

ABSTRACT

Little is known about the “weekend warrior” pattern of physical activity (PA) where people perform all their PA in 1 or 2 sessions per week. We investigated the relationship of weekend warrior and other PA patterns with metabolic syndrome (MS) and its associated diseases. Data on sociodemographic and lifestyle characteristics were collected from the Nantong Metabolic Syndrome Study that included 13,505 women and 6,997 men between 2007 and 2008. Compared with inactive participants, weekend warriors were at lower risk of MS, diabetes, and hypertension; respective odds ratios (95% confidence intervals) for men and women were 0.58 (0.43–0.79) and 0.67 (0.52–0.86), 0.52 (0.34–0.79) and 0.52 (0.33–0.83), and 0.79 (0.63–0.99) and 0.71 (0.57–0.89). Similar results were observed with regular activity, at a frequency of >3 sessions per week. Both weekend warrior and regular PA patterns showed a 10–60% decrease in abnormal triglycerides, glucose, and blood pressure in both sexes; abnormal waist circumference in men only; and abnormal high-density lipoprotein in women only. Our observed cross-sectional relationships reflect that >150 min/week of moderate PA or 75 min/week vigorous-intensity PA is needed to prevent MS and its component diseases, even if in a short-bout, intermittent PA pattern.

Abbreviations: MS: Metabolic syndrome; WC: Waist circumference; TG: Triglycerides; HDL-c: High-density lipoprotein cholesterol; BP: Blood pressure; SBP: Systolic blood pressure, DBP: Diastolic blood pressure; PA: Physical activity; JIS: Joint Interim Statement; CVD: Cardiovascular disease; ATP III: US Third Report of the National Cholesterol Education Program, the Adult Treatment Panel; IDF: International Diabetes Federation; IPAQ: International Physical Activity Questionnaire; BMI: Body mass index; CDC: the Nantong Centers for Disease Control; OR: Odds ratio; CI: Confidence interval; SD: Standard deviation; IQR: Interquartile range.

KEYWORDS:

• Metabolic syndrome
• metabolic syndrome components
• physical activity
• weekend warrior
• diabetes
• hypertension

Acknowledgment

We deeply appreciate the participants of the NMSS in Nantong, China as well as the overseas research planning team of excellent middle-aged and young teachers and the president of university in Jiangsu province.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Authors’ contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: JX MC YG XZ. Data collection: JX HS WR ZL TH HX YL. Analyzed the data: JX MC HS. Wrote the paper: JX MC HS. Reviewed and approved the manuscript: JX MC HS WR TH HX YL YG XZ.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant numbers 31000539 and 71603137; the Ministry of Science and Technology of China under Grant number 2006 BA1 01A 01; the Department of Science and Technology of Nantong under Grant number MS22016039; and the University Student’s Innovation Training Program in Jiangsu Province under Grant number 201710304076Y.