Evaluation of mobile phone and Internet intervention on waist circumference and blood pressure in post-menopausal women with abdominal obesity

Purpose: The present study evaluated whether an intervention using a short message service (SMS) by personal cellular phone and Internet would reduce cardiovascular risk factors in post-menopausal women with abdominal obesity over 12 weeks. Methods: This is a quasi-experimental design with pre and post tests. Participants were recruited from the gynecology outpatient and family medicine departments of a tertiary care hospital located in an urban city of South Korea. Only 67 subjects completed the entire study, 34 in the intervention group and 33 controls. The goal of intervention was to reduce waist circumference (WC), body weight (BW) and blood pressure (BP) levels. Before the intervention, demographic variables, WC, BW, BP, fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and serum lipids were measured as pre-test data. The WC, BW, BP, FPG and serum lipids were measured again 12 weeks later. Patients in the intervention group were requested to record their WC, BW, BP, type and amount of diet and exercise in a weekly web-based diary through the Internet or by cellular phone. The researchers sent weekly recommendations on diet and exercise as an intervention to each patient, by both cellular phone and Internet. The intervention was applied for 12 weeks. Results: WC and BW significantly decreased by 3.0 cm and 2.0 kg, respectively, at 12 weeks compared with the baseline in the intervention group. However, the mean changes in the control group significantly increased by 0.9 cm and 0.7 kg. Systolic BP (SBP) and diastolic BP (DBP) significantly decreased by 6.5 and 4.6 mmHg in the intervention group, respectively. The mean changes in the control group were not significant in either SBP or DBP. A significant mean decrease in total cholesterol (TC) was observed for the intervention group by 12.9 mg/dl, while the control group showed a significant mean increase by 1.5 mg/dl. Low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) for the intervention group showed a significant mean decrease 11.3 mg/dl. The mean change in the control group was, however, not significant. Conclusion: Web-based individual intervention using both SMS and Internet improved WC, BW, BP, TC, and LDL-C during 12 weeks in post-menopausal women with abdominal obesity. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.