Association of Physical Activity and arterial stiffness indices:
In the current analysis, we also examined the relationship between AS and PA as a practical approach to preventing CVD, which is correlated with lower cardiovascular risk and mortality (49, 50). Our findings showed that PA was inversely related to cAIx, but not PWV, while this correlation is not clinically relevant. In line with our results, cross-sectional studies reporting the association of PA with cAIx and PWV; the authors reported an inverse relationship between PA and cAIx in hypertension and general participants below age 60 years (27, 51). A randomized control trial by Suboc et al. has shown that PA for twelve weeks had no significant effect on AS measured by PWV (52). However, another investigation displayed a negative association between low-PA and PWV (53); while Gomez-Marcos et al. found a positive relationship between low-PA and PWV (54). Several reasons can explain this discrepancy in the results; the methods used to evaluate PA (objective measures, different types of questionnaires), the characteristics of the sample, such as age and sex, the intensity of PA, and the season of the year.
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to assess the association of both PWV and cAIx with multiple body composition parameters (novel and traditional), bioelec­trical impedance-derived parameters, lipid profiles, and PA. However, several limitations should be considered in the interpretation of our results. The associations which were assessed in the present study were based on cross-sectional designs, and therefore the cause-effect relationship is not clear. Finally, our study performed only on the Iranian population, which may be limited to the applicability of the results to other regions and ethnic groups. AS is likely to be influenced by Ethnicity and heredity (55), and anthropometric indices have various power to predict cardiovascular risk in different populations.