Correlations of non-exercise activity thermogenesis to metabolic parameters in Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Background</jats:title> <jats:p>Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) is the energy expenditure due to physical activities besides active sports-like exercise and resistance training in daily life.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Methods</jats:title> <jats:p>We studied 45 subjects (22 women and 23 men) with type 2 diabetes who did not take any hypoglycemic, anti-hypertensive, or cholesterol-lowering agents and asked them about physical activity concerned with NEAT using an original questionnaire modified from a compendium of physical activities. We studied the association of the NEAT score to body weight, waist circumference, blood pressure, glucose and lipid metabolism, and arterial stiffness.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Results</jats:title> <jats:p>The NEAT score was negatively correlated with serum insulin levels (r = -0.42, <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < 0.05) in all subjects. The NEAT score was also negatively correlated with waist circumference (r = -0.509, <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < 0.05) and positively correlated with high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol levels (r = 0.494, <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < 0.05) in women, and negatively associated with serum insulin levels (r = -0.732, p < 0.005), systolic (r = -0.482, <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < 0.05) and diastolic blood pressure (r = -0.538, <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < 0.05) in patients with abdominal obesity. Furthermore, the NEAT score was negatively associated with pulse wave velocity (r = -0.719, <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < 0.005) in smokers.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Conclusion</jats:title> <jats:p>The study demonstrated that NEAT is associated with amelioration in insulin sensitivity, waist circumference, high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol, blood pressure and the marker for atherosclerosis in patients with type 2 diabetes.</jats:p> </jats:sec>