Effect of a HIIT Program on Quality of Life, Executive Functions, and IGF-1 Response in Sedentary Young University Women

Summary

Sedentary lifestyle, understood as an activity that requires minimal body movement (Tremblay et al., 2017), is one of the main factors responsible for chronic diseases in Young adults.

In addition, this sedentary lifestyle generates mental disorders, such as anxiety, low self-esteem and depression, being more pronounced in women than in men (Nihill et al., 2013). Thus, both daily physical activity (PA) and physical exercise programs (PE), of moderate-vigorous intensity, act as an effective tools for the improvement of quality of life, since they generate benefits at physiological, psychological and social levels (Cohen et al., 2019).

If we focus on young adult, it can be seen how there is a significant decrease in the practice of physical exercise at this age (Grim et al., 2011). This means that the aforementioned recommendations are not reached (Cancela et al., 2019). Furthermore, if compared between sexes, lower levels are shown in the female sex (King et al., 2014).

For this reasons, and taking into account that the female population is a population vulnerable to significantly reduce their physical activity practice with age (Cohen et al., 2019), it is interesting to investigate on the possible health-related factors that this entails, such as quality of life, physical condition and mental health.

For these reasons, it is necessary to create effective strategies to address factors related to the main cognitive impairments and thus preserve better mental health.

Among all possible strategies, both pharmacological and non-pharmacological for the improvement of mental health, cognition and executive functions in young adults.Physical exercise has been shown to be a highly effective strategy at these ages (Heath et al., 2016). The stimulation of HIIT seems to reduce antioxidant responses. In recent years, there is a high interest in knowing the effect of HIIT on different health outcomes, such as physical and psychological fitness (Eather et al., 2019).

For all these reasons, sedentary lifestyles are an important public health factor associated with numerous pathologies and have been shown to have a significant cognitive involvement. Although we know that physical exercise can have a preventive role in the management of these associations, the conditioning factors of physical exercise are unknown, as well as the lifestyle factors that could contribute to a greater extent to the improvement of executive functionality in young women.

Conditions

• Insulin Growth Factor I Deficiency
• IGF1 Deficiency
• Executive Function Disorder

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

HIIT

The training sessions will have a frequency of 3 times per week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) and the duration will be between 39 to 54 minutes, depending on the training week. The training program will be developed with the own body weight of each participant. Therefore, a progression according to the needs of this population will be fulfilled. The session model could be multi-joint exercises with self-loads, where the difficulty of the exercises will be worked progressively. Throughout the main part of each workout, 30 seconds of work will be performed at the corresponding intensity and 30 seconds of rest. Halfway through the total repetitions, there will be 2 minutes of recovery.

BEHAVIORAL

HIIT+PA

In relation to the 2 groups that will perform HIIT, the HIIT+AF will have to complete 10.000 steps per day. In this way, they will be focusing on increasing their daily physical activity. In addition, this group will perform the same HIIT training programme as the other experimental group.

BEHAVIORAL

CON

This group will not suffer any changes in their lifestyle

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Seville

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Manuel Jesus Jimenez Roldan · University of Seville

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

30 Years

Sex

FEMALE

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2022-10-15

Primary Completion

2023-01-15

Completion

2023-04-15

Countries

• Spain

Study Locations