Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação Física

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are cause of morbidity and mortality in Brazil and the world. Strategies for preventing CVDs are necessary to minimize the possibility of cardiovascular events and expenses in health care by public authorities. In this scenario, it is essential to rescue physical activities to the CVD prevention context. Social dance provide leisure physical activity and are attended by the elderly. In Florianópolis region there is a wide and regular offer of long lasting (3 to 5 hours) social dance (seven days a week). Nevertheless, this dancing practice place is poorly studied in health prevention researches. Thus, a study aiming to verify the association between social dance and the risk of cardiovascular diseases development in the elderly was conducted. There search was conducted with a group of elderly that attended social dance (SDG). The selected social dances were the regular ones, happening in the afternoons, in Community Centers at Florianópolis region. The volume and dancing intensity practiced by the elderly at those social dances were investigated. A control group (CG) was formed by elderly that did not attended social dance, but participated in bingos at the same community centers were the social dance took place. All elderly filled out an assessment questionnaire and used the accelerometer five days during 10 hours/day, to measure their weekly physical activity. Cardiovascular disease risk markers in this study were Framingham Risk Score (FRS), neopterin (NPT) and carotid artery intima-medial thickness (IMT). To obtain them, blood sample; urine sample; mean arterial pressure (MAP) measurements and carotid ultrasound were conducted. Main results show that elderly from SDG are more active than the CG by the total amount of PA/week: 2912 vs 2308,6 minutes (p=0,005); prevalence on performing 150min of AFMV/week: 94,2% vs 74,4% (p=0,008); of number of steps a day: 6454,1 vs5670,8 (p=0,05); being the performed PA at the social dances corresponding to the daily difference between groups in terms of weekly PA. Most elderly attended the social dance once or twice a week (71%) in a regular basis during six years (66,9%). From the four hours of permanence at the social dance, the elderly performed PA in two hours, considering an average of 14,4 minutes of moderate physical activity (AFLAMV). It was verified that the elderly performed an average of four 14 minutes bouts of AFLAMV, that summed 56 minutes. At social dance the foot step speed increases 400% compared to weekly usual walk (from 3,7 to 15,1). The step walk average for each ball room was 3.593 considering its performing in only two hours. Considering the risk factors, there is a significative difference between SDG and CG at the ERF point: 14,8 vs 17,2 (p=0,04). Clinically, there are differences among the PAS values: SDG 134,5 vs CG 143,4mmHg; in plaque prevalence SDG 27,9% vs CG 43,6%; and carotid obstruction SDG 5,9% vs CG 5,1% respectively. Besides the low percentage of elderly with obstruction, most obstructions found varied from 55 to 65% in either groups. Inverse associations were found between AFLMV and NPT: decreasing of 2,29 μmol NPT/ μmol Creatinine to each extra minute of AFLAMV (p=0,03); AFLA e NPT: decreasing of 3,61 μmol NPT/ μmol Creatinine to each minute of AFLA (p=0,02) during physical activity at the social dance; and in the weekly physicals activities inverse associations between 150min AFLAMV with ITM were observed: decreasing of 0,43mm for each extra minute 150min/week AFLAMV (p=0,00), AFLA with ITM: decrease of 0,02mm for each extra hour of AFLA (p=0,04) and plus; AFMV with ERF: decreasing of 0,012 points/minute for each extra minute of AFMV (p=0,004). Conclusions: physical activities present inverse associations to the cardiovascular risk markers when performed in the same way or higher than the high light intensity, that is to say, when classified as moderate intensity by cut-off proposed to elders by Copeland and Esliger (2009). About the volume, it was observed inverse association only with the 150min/week of AFLMV. Regarding the physical activity performed at social dance, it was observed that it seems to contribute to a more active and healthier life in aging considering the PA values performed at the social dance and the lower values of the risk factor in elders from SDG when compared to CG. The inverse association between LA and LAMV from activities performed at the social dance with NPT values stressed the need of new researches to clarify issues of cause and effect among those variables.