A 13-year follow-up of a coronary heart disease risk factor screening and exercise program for 40- to 59-year-old men: Exercise habit maintenance and physiologic status

A 13-year follow-up of a coronary heart disease screening and exercise intervention was undertaken to determine possible program effects on subsequent physical activity habits, other health-related behaviors, and associated physiologic variables. The original study, conducted between 1966 and 1968, screened 1,376 male Penn State employees to identify a cohort possessing two or more risk factors within intermediate ranges. Of men so identified, 171 volunteered for randomization to either an exercise (E) or a control (C) group, and the remainder withdrew (withdrawals). Other groups then classified were normals (one or no risk factors), medical exclusions (one or more risk factors beyond the intermediate ranges), and volitionally active (habitually very physically active in leisure time). Group E members participated in an 18-month supervised exercise program. Recruitment for the present 13-year follow-up drew from all six study groups, with 315 men reexamined (aged 53 to 72 years). At follow-up, 28% of group E members reported some jogging (major conditioning mode of the 1967-1968 program) during the year before interview. There were no differences between members of group E and C, however, with respect to hrs-wk^-1 of jogging, sleep, smoking, intake of dietary fat and alcohol, cardiovascular fitness, blood lipids, blood pressure, and percent body fat. The volitionally active group (not exposed to the exercise intervention) significantly exceeded all other groups in jogging hrs-wk^-1, other measures of leisure physical activity, maximal aerobic capacity, and HDL-cholesterol; they were also the leanest and there were no smokers among them. The 1967-1968 intervention conferred upon E group members no special advantage over group C or any other study group.