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

Background: Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) is the energy expenditure due to physical activities besides active sports-like exercise and resistance training in daily life. Methods: 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. Results: The NEAT score was negatively correlated with serum insulin levels (r = -0.42, P < 0.05) in all subjects. The NEAT score was also negatively correlated with waist circumference (r = -0.509, P < 0.05) and positively correlated with high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol levels (r = 0.494, P < 0.05) in women, and negatively associated with serum insulin levels (r = -0.732, p < 0.005), systolic (r = -0.482, P < 0.05) and diastolic blood pressure (r = -0.538, P < 0.05) in patients with abdominal obesity. Furthermore, the NEAT score was negatively associated with pulse wave velocity (r = -0.719, P < 0.005) in smokers. Conclusion: 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.