Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Aging Clinical and Experimental Research https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-019-01222-6 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Resistin concentration is inversely associated with objectively measured physical activity in healthy older women Anni Rava 1  · Anu Pihlak 1  · Tatjana Kums 1  · Priit Purge 1  · Mati Pääsuke 1  · Jaak Jürimäe 1 Received: 18 February 2019 / Accepted: 10 May 2019 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 Abstract Regular physical activity (PA) has been associated with decreased risk of many chronic diseases and increased longevity among older adults. In addition, ageing has been associated with higher levels of diferent infammatory biomarkers while the association between infammatory biomarkers and PA has remained controversial. The aim of the current investigation was to examine the association between blood biomarkers and objectively assessed PA among a sample of healthy older women with diferent levels of PA engagement. A total of 81 healthy women were recruited. Study participants were allo- cated to three groups according to accelerometer-obtained PA data. Body composition was assessed with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Fasting blood samples were collected for the measurement of resistin, leptin, tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) and C-reactive protein (CRP) concentrations. There were no signifcant diferences between groups for resistin, leptin, TNFα and for CRP concentrations; however, higher moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) groups tended to have lower level of blood biomarker concentrations. There was a signifcant negative relationship between resistin and steps per day. Inverse association between leptin and MVPA was signifcant after controlling for age. In multivariate stepwise linear regression analysis, steps per day were the strongest independent predictor for resistin, whereas for leptin, TNFα and CRP the strongest independent predictor was whole body fat mass. In conclusion, this study demonstrated negative association between resistin concentration and steps per day. Sedentary time and light PA had no relationship with resistin, leptin, TNFα or CRP concentrations. Keywords Ageing · Resistin · Leptin · Physical activity · Older women Introduction Healthy ageing is described as a process, which enables older adults to take an active part in the society and enables one to live an independent and high-quality life [1]. Physical activity (PA) has been proven to be an important benefcial cofounder of healthy ageing [2–4]. It is well known that age- ing has been characterised by changes in body composition, which includes a decrease in bone mineral density, muscle mass and strength [5], and an increase in body fat percent- age [6]. These age-related changes in body composition are partially caused by lowered engagement in daily PA [3]. A decreased PA level has been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases in older people [7, 8] which have been noted as one of the main causes of death in older adults [8]. In contrast, an active lifestyle with regular PA has been associated with a decreased risk of many chronic diseases and increased longevity [9, 10]. Adiposity, described as one of the cofounding character- istics of ageing [6], induces a state of low grade but chronic infammation through the release of multiple pro-infamma- tory cytokines [11], and ageing has also been associated with higher levels of diferent infammatory biomarkers [11]. On the other hand, higher PA has been associated with lower circulating concentrations in infammatory cytokines such as C-reactive protein (CRP) [12, 13] and tumour necrosis fac- tor alpha (TNFα) [12] in studies conducted among healthy elderly population. Serum CRP and TNFα concentrations are both associated with a variety of chronic diseases and conditions such as cardiovascular diseases [14] and osteo- porosis [15], which are further interrelated with increasing age [16]. In addition, another pro-infammatory cytokine, * Anni Rava annirava@ut.ee 1 Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Sport Sciences and Physiotherapy, University of Tartu, Ujula 4, 51014 Tartu, Estonia