Physical Activity, Television Viewing Time, and Retinal Microvascular Caliber: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis

摘要

Physical activities and sedentary behaviors are 2 broad classes of behavior that may be clearly distinguishednfrom each other and have different patterns of determinants. The authors examined the associations of physicalnactivity and television viewing time with retinal vascular caliber among US adults (n ¼ 5,893) from 4 racial/ethnicngroups in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (2002–2004) that included non-Hispanic whites, blacks,nHispanics, and Chinese. Physical activity and television viewing time were assessed by using a questionnaire,nand vascular calibers (arteriolar and venular) were measured from digital retinal photographs. Those in the lowestnquartile of physical activity had wider retinal venular caliber compared with those in the highest quartile in multi-nvariate models adjusted for demographic, cardiovascular, behavioral, and inflammatory risk factors. This wasnnoted in non-Hispanic whites and Hispanics but not in blacks or Chinese. For television viewing time, non-Hispanicnwhites (but not the other racial/ethnic groups) who were in the highest quartile of television viewing time had widernretinal venular caliber compared with those in the lowest quartile. No associations were noted with arteriolar caliber.nLower levels of physical activity (among non-Hispanic whites and Hispanics) and higher levels of television viewingntime (among whites) are associated with wider retinal venules.