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The purpose of this study was to evaluate the behavior of the cardiac autonomic nervous system in adolescents with family history of hypertension at different levels of physical activity. The sample was composed for 162 adolescents who were divided into 2 groups: (a) offspring of normotensive; and (b) offspring of hypertensive that were subdivided into low and high levels of physical activity. The subjects underwent the following evaluations: anthropometric, level of physical activity, sexual maturation, sleep quality index, blood pressure, and heart rate variability. Significant differences (P<0.05) was observed at RMSSD, PNN50, Total Variance, HF, and LF. The findings indicate the practice of physical activity has a protector function on the cardiovascular system, which was linked to the decrease in sympathetic modulation along with a greater vagal response in adolescents with normotensive or hypertensive parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to evaluate body composition and nutritional status in 576 adolescents living in rural (RUR) and urban (URB) areas. The subjects were submitted to body composition and nutritional status assessments using the AnthroPlus software. Z-stature and Z-BMI calculations were performed. A multivariate logistic regression was also conducted and the Hosmer-Lemeshow test was used to verify the predictive capacity of the applied model. Statistical significance was set at an alpha level of P<0.05. The RUR adolescents showed significantly lower values of weight and height for age, while the adolescents of the URB demonstrated normality in these indices. In addition, adolescents in the RUR showed a risk of up to 6.29 times for short stature and 2.85 times for low weight, while adolescents of the URB presented a risk of 4.13 times for obesity. The RUR adolescents are at a high nutritional risk, while the URB adolescents are at a high risk for obesity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluated the cardiac autonomic modulation after 3 months of exercise in 10 elderly women with low level cognitive function. The subjects were evaluated before and after the 18 wks of physical exercise. The anthropometric and clinical variables showed a significant difference in the body fat (P=0.030), heart rate (P=0.032), and double product (P=0.013). Regarding the variable cognition can be seen that the elderly showed low level cognitive function both pre-exercise and post-exercise. Physical exercise improved the subjects' cardiac autonomic modulation with an increase in the parasympathetic nervous system and a decrease in the sympathetic nervous system. Thus, heart rate was decreased along with double product and body fat. Also, functional capacity was increased in the elderly women with low cognitive function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]