HIIE and Abdominal Fat Mass in DT2 Postmenopausal Women

Postmenopausal women, as men, are more prone to central or android obesity. Abdominal fat mass is associated with an increase of cardiovascular diseases (CVD). In type 2 diabetic (T2D) patients, the risk of CVD mortality is more than double compared with that in age-matched subjects. Most exercise programs designed for weight loss have focused on steady-state exercise (SEE) of around 30 min at a moderate intensity several times a week. Disappointingly, these kinds of exercise programs have led to little or no fat loss (Shaw et al. 2006). Accumulating evidence suggests that high intensity intermittent exercise (HIIE) has the potential to be an effective exercise protocol for reducing fat of overweight individuals, especially at the abdominal level (Boutcher 2011, Kessler 2012). Despite these results, HIIE program has never been used in TD2 postmenopausal women to favor a specific decrease of abdominal fat mass. The aim of our study was to compare the effects of 16-week steady-state exercise (SSE) program with high intensity intermittent exercise (HIIE) program on total abdominal and visceral fat mass in T2D postmenopausal women. It is hypothesized that HIIE compared to SSE program would result in significantly greater reductions in total abdominal and visceral fat mass.