Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Feb 6:13:1527132.
doi: 10.3389/fped.2025.1527132. eCollection 2025.

The association of physical activity and carotid intima-media-thickness in adolescents-data of the prospective early vascular ageing-tyrol cohort study

Bernhard Winder  1   2   3 , Sophia Zollner-Kiechl  3   4 , Benoît Bernar  5   6 , Nina Gande  2 , Anna Staudt  2 , Anna K Stock  7   8 , Christoph Hochmayr  2 , Ralf Geiger  7 , Andrea Griesmacher  9 , Stefan Kiechl  3   10 , Ursula Kiechl-Kohlendorfer  2 , Michael Knoflach  3   10 ; Early Vascular Ageing (EVA)-Tyrol Study Group
Collaborators, Affiliations

The association of physical activity and carotid intima-media-thickness in adolescents-data of the prospective early vascular ageing-tyrol cohort study

Bernhard Winder et al. Front Pediatr. .

Abstract

Background: Physical activity (PA) protects against cardiovascular disease. However, previous research has shown that high PA is associated with an increased carotid intima-media-thickness (cIMT), an independent predictor for future cardiovascular disease. Our aim was to further investigate this unexpected association with two different measurement methods of PA and two established markers for Early Vascular Ageing: cIMT and carotid-femoral pulse-wave velocity (cfPWV).

Methods: The community-based Early Vascular Ageing-Tyrol cohort study included adolescents in western Austria and northern Italy. Medical examinations included anthropometric measurements, fasting blood analysis, a physician guided interview to assess lifestyle factors, measurement of cIMT and cfPWV. PA was rated by an in-person interview on the basis of average minutes of moderate- or vigorous sports per day and by the Baecke questionnaire expressed as Baecke score (BS).

Results: Complete data set was available for 1,001 adolescents with a mean age of 17.8 years (standard deviation ±0.9 years). 558 (55.7%) of participants were female. cIMT was positively associated with both measures of PA in univariate (minutes sports per day: p < 0.001; BS: p < 0.001) as well as multivariable analysis adjusting for established cardiovascular risk factors (minutes sports per day: p = 0.001; BS: p = 0.002). Using cfPWV in a multivariate model an inverse correlation with the BS (p = 0.023) was observed, but not for minutes sports per day (p = 0.554).

Conclusion: In our large community-based cohort of adolescents, PA was associated with an increased cIMT but shows a trend towards lower aortic stiffness measured by cfPWV. We hypothesize that the association of PA with increased cIMT is not caused by early atherosclerotic vessel wall changes but is rather a physiologic adaptive process of the vessel wall.

Trial registration number: The EVA-Tyrol Study has been registered at clinicaltrials.gov under NCT03929692 since April 29, 2019.

Keywords: Baecke questionnaire; cardiovascular risk factors; carotid intima-media-thickness; early vascular aging; physical activity.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
EVA-Tyrol study participation flow chart. From: The association of physical activity and carotid intima-media-thickness in adolescents—Data of the prospective Early Vascular Ageing (EVA)-Tyrol cohort study.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Townsend N, Kazakiewicz D, Lucy Wright F, Timmis A, Huculeci R, Torbica A, et al. Epidemiology of cardiovascular disease in Europe. Nat Rev Cardiol. (2022) 19(2):133–43. 10.1038/s41569-021-00607-3 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Libby P, Ridker PM, Hansson GK. Progress and challenges in translating the biology of atherosclerosis. Nature. (2011) 473(7347):317–25. 10.1038/nature10146 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Berenson GS, Srinivasan SR, Bao W, Newman WP, III, Tracy RE, Wattigney WA. Association between multiple cardiovascular risk factors and atherosclerosis in children and young adults. The Bogalusa Heart Study. N Engl J Med. (1998) 338(23):1650–6. 10.1056/NEJM199806043382302 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Berenson GS. Childhood risk factors predict adult risk associated with subclinical cardiovascular disease. The Bogalusa Heart Study. Am J Cardiol. (2002) 90(10c):3l–7l. 10.1016/s0002-9149(02)02953-3 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Yang J, Cao RY, Gao R, Mi Q, Dai Q, Zhu F. Physical exercise is a potential “Medicine” for atherosclerosis. Adv Exp Med Biol. (2017) 999:269–86. 10.1007/978-981-10-4307-9_15 - DOI - PubMed

Associated data

LinkOut - more resources