NEW YORK, May 26 (Reuters Health) -- High-intensity strength training using weight machines and free-weights improves cholesterol levels as much as aerobic exercise in previously sedentary young women, researchers report in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
The same strength training exercise program also reduced body fat, they add.
Dr. Bharathi Prabhakaran and colleagues from the Old Dominion University, Darden College of Education, Norfolk, Virginia, assigned 12 healthy young women to a high-intensity, progressive strength training program and 12 others to a non-exercising "control" group. Women in the exercise group performed a variety of resistance training exercises, including repeated leg curls, leg extensions, presses, press-up and biceps curls. Each training session lasted 45 to 50 minutes and women exercised 3 days a week for 14 weeks.
The control group did not participate in any structured exercise program.
"At the end of training... total cholesterol was significantly lower... in the resistance exercise training group than in the control group," the investigators report. Resistance training reduced levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol -- the so-called "bad" cholesterol -- by 14%, and did not affect levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) or "good" cholesterol.
Body fat also decreased slightly in the group who engaged in resistance training, while measures of muscle strength improved.
In contrast, there were no such changes in the group of women who had not exercised, the investigators note.
Studies link lower levels of both total and "bad" cholesterol, as well as higher levels of "good" cholesterol to a lower risk of heart disease.
SOURCE: British Journal of Sports Medicine 1999;33:190-195.
