Muscular Fitness and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review

Rodrigues de Lima, T, Custódio Martins, P, Henrique Guerra, P, and Augusto Santos Silva, D. Muscular fitness and cardiovascular risk factors in children and adolescents: A systematic review. J Strength Cond Res 34(8): 2394-2406, 2020-The purpose of this study was to identify and summarize the relationships between muscular fitness (MF) and individual components of metabolic syndrome (high waist circumference [WC], high blood pressure [BP], high systolic BP [SBP], high diastolic BP [DBP], high triglycerides [TG], fasting blood glucose [FG], and low HDL cholesterol levels [HDL-C]) in children and adolescents. A systematic review was conducted in 5 electronic databases, with complementary searches in reference lists, and the inclusion criteria were children and adolescents (age group up to 19 years of age) with no special clinical conditions. In all articles, risk of bias was analyzed by a standardized instrument. Of the 5,973 articles initially identified, 21 were included, with data on 22,261 children and adolescents. Higher MF values were associated with lower TG (n = 07) and WC values (n = 15). Different results in relation to the relationship between MF and SBP (n = 10) and MF and DBP (n = 07) were verified. In addition, there was no relationship between MF and FG (n = 06). In addition, inconclusive results were verified in the relationship between MF and HDL-C (n = 07). Concluded higher MF values were related to lower WC values and lower TG concentrations.