Relative associations of fitness and fatness to fibrinogen, white blood cell count, uric acid and metabolic syndrome

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relation between fitness and fibrinogen, white blood cell count, uric acid and metabolic syndrome across levels of adiposity in apparently healthy, nonsmoking men. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study of 4057 men from the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study examining the age-adjusted resting levels and risk of having a clinically significant elevation of fibrinogen, white blood cell count, uric acid and metabolic syndrome score across nine fitness-body fatness combinations. Fitness categories (low fitness, moderately fit or high fitness) were based on a maximal treadmill test. Body mass index (BMI) < 25.0 was classified as normal weight, BMI greater than or equal to 25.0 but < 30.0 as overweight and BMI greater than or equal to 30.0 as obese. RESULTS: Fitness (inversely) and BMI (directly) were independently related to the age-adjusted values of all four variables (P for trend P < 0.0001 for each). For all four variables, the greatest age-adjusted risk of having a clinically relevant value was found in the low fitness-obese category and the lowest age-adjusted risk was found in the high fitness-normal weight group. CONCLUSIONS: Fibrinogen, white blood cells, uric acid and metabolic syndrome score are independently related to both fitness (inversely) and fatness (directly). Within levels of fatness, risk for significant elevations in fibrinogen, white blood cells, uric acid and metabolic syndrome score is lower for the higher fitness groups.