A Lasting Legacy: Long-Term Effects of Exercise Training on Cardiometabolic Health in the STRRIDE-Prediabetes Reunion Study
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Background
Regular exercise is a highly effective yet underutilized strategy to reduce cardiometabolic disease burden. Whether brief structured exercise programs confer lasting cardiometabolic benefits remains unclear. The STRRIDE-Prediabetes Reunion study examined legacy effects of exercise training on cardiorespiratory fitness, body composition, and cardiometabolic health.
Methods
Seventy-three participants (71.3±7.2 years; 64% women; 77% White) completed Reunion assessments ∼11 years after completing one of four 6-month interventions differing in exercise amount, intensity, and inclusion of diet-induced weight loss. Linear mixed effects models evaluated longitudinal trajectories; secondary analyses examined baseline-adjusted associations among short-term intervention response and Reunion outcomes.
Results
Abdominal adiposity improved across all groups from baseline to Reunion, with waist circumference decreasing ∼3 cm over the follow-up period. In contrast, cardiorespiratory fitness and fat-free mass declined significantly. A significant group by time interaction was observed for total fat mass ( p =0.01), with continued fat mass reductions observed in women randomized to high amount exercise. After baseline adjustment, greater short-term intervention response was associated with more favorable Reunion outcomes across fitness, body composition, and cardiometabolic domains; fat-free mass showed the strongest association (β=0.84, p <0.0001).
Conclusions
In older adults with prediabetes, the STRRIDE-Prediabetes interventions produced several legacy health effects persisting more than a decade later. Legacy effects differed by sex and exercise dose, and short-term intervention response relative to baseline was associated with long-term outcomes – supporting targeted exercise strategies to preserve cardiometabolic health and functional independence with aging.
