Physical activity and dietary factors associated with glucose concentration among young adults: a cross sectional study

Abstract

Background: The rising incidence of impaired glucose metabolism among young adults poses a significant public health concern. Sedentary lifestyles and poor dietary habits have been identified as key modifiable risk factors for the development of early-onset metabolic disturbances, including elevated blood glucose levels. Understanding the relationship between these lifestyle factors and glucose concentration is essential for early prevention of type 2 diabetes in this population.

Objective: To determine the association between glucose concentration, physical activity, and dietary factors among young adults.

Method: A cross-sectional analytical study with a sample size of n=139 participants was conducted at Railway General Hospital, Rawalpindi. The duration of this study was about 12 months. Both males and females between 18 and 30 years were included. To assess physical activity, the using the IPAQ questionnaire, as well as fasting and random glucose levels, a Glucometer was used. Further, the dietary profile was taken from USDA FoodData Central. SPSS version 21 was used for statistical analysis.

Results: The mean age of the participants were 23.76±0.37 years. The n=44 (31.7%) was male and n=95(68.3%) were female out of n=139. The ANOVA model significantly predicted the physical activity has the significant impact on blood sugar level (p<0.38). The low physical activity significantly (p=0.005) increases the blood sugar level while higher total METs are linked to lower blood sugar levels. But the impact of the dietary factors on blood sugar level, did not predict the significant variance in Glucose level (p=0.662).

Conclusion: the physical activity in young adults have important impact on glucose concentration, while dietary factors shows no significant effect due to limitations in how dietary data was collected.