Aging, Lifestyle and Inflammation in Veterans Exercising — ALIVE  

Aging Clinical Trial

Official title: Aging, Lifestyle and Inflammation in Veterans Exercising

Status Active, not recruiting

Clinical Trial Summary

Over half of adults in this country are overweight. This increases risk for heart and blood pressure problems, cancer, stroke and arthritis. While it is difficult to lose large amounts of weight and keep it off, even small amounts of weight loss can improve health. Furthermore, fat is increasingly recognized as a source of substances that increase inflammation. It may be that some of the adverse consequences of being overweight are due to increased inflammation. We are asking you to volunteer for a research study in which you may lose a moderate amount of weight and increase your activity. It is important that you read and understand the information on this form.

The purposes of these studies are to determine the influence(s) of age and body composition on the production of inflammatory chemicals by fat (adipose tissue), the mechanisms controlling this, and if a weight loss and aerobic exercise intervention results in a decrease in inflammation.

Clinical Trial Description

Adipose tissue is increasingly recognized as more than an inert depot serving not only to accept and store excess energy in the form of triglycerides, but also to secrete hormones and adipokines that have substantial effects on lipid and glucose metabolism. Furthermore, there are depot differences in metabolic function, as well as adipokine content. However, the physiology both underlying and consequential to these observations remains unknown. This research is therefore designed to examine:

1) the effects of aging and obesity on regional adipokine secretion and expression, 2) whether elevated adipokine levels in older obese people are due to increased macrophage infiltration into subcutaneous adipose tissue and/or related to total, subcutaneous or visceral abdominal fat (SAT or VAT) distribution, and 3) the relationship of adipokines to insulin resistance and the constituents of the metabolic syndrome.

Specifically, we aim to determine:

1. if the expression and secretion of a) the inflammatory markers SAA, IL-6, TNF-a, MCP-1 is greater, and b) the anti-inflammatory hormone adiponectin is lower in SC abdominal and gluteal adipose tissue from older, compared to middle-aged and younger obese subjects across a narrow range of obesity and waist circumference;

2. if these age-associated changes in adipokine production are a)due to the degree of macrophage infiltration of regional adipose tissue, and/or differences in a greater degree of visceral and/or differences in ABD fat distribution (SAT, VAT), and b) related to glucose and lipid metabolic profiles of the subjects; and

3. the effects of a WL+AEX intervention on regional adipokine expression and secretion, circulating levels of CRP and the above adipokines, and glucose and lipid metabolism in a subset of obese sedentary individuals with greater than two components of the metabolic syndrome. ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Aging
• Exercise
• Inflammation
• Metabolism

• NCT number: NCT00667030
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: University of Maryland, Baltimore
• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: July 2005
• Completion date: December 2025