Health-related Fitness: 1000 SNP Genotypes of UK adults, 2021-2023

Chung, Henry (2023). Health-related Fitness: 1000 SNP Genotypes of UK adults, 2021-2023. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-856799

Component of health-related fitness are a necessary focus of improvement for health and prevention associated all cause mortality within the sport and exercise science literature. Clinically, it is also an area of focus, especially for those that have poor fitness for the same reasons. Fundamentally, research has constantly reported that individuals respond differentially to identical health-based interventions, suggesting the involvement of a genetic component in individual responses to health, exercise and fitness markers. Previous exercise studies has focused predominantly on a relatively small number of candidate genes and their overall influence in fitness responsiveness. Additionally, the examination of gene-specific alleles are also overlooked, being one of the major limitations within this field. Accordingly, this study aimed to investigate individual’s genotypes following a field-based running endurance programme within a previously untrained population within the UK. Participants were randomly assigned to either a training (n = 17) or control group (n = 21). The training group completed a periodized running program for 8-weeks (duration: 20-30-minutes per session, three times per week) whereas the control group continued with their normal daily routines. The data presented here is one-thousand single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) collected for each participant via a saliva sample DNA test kit.

Data description (abstract)

Key components of health-related fitness, such as cardio-respiratory fitness, are highly important due to its consistent association with improved health and fitness. This is especially important for those that have poor fitness and are classed as untrained. Although this is well established, much of the current research has shown individuals respond differentially to identical training interventions. It has been speculated that the human genome, but more specifically genotypes, may be partly responsible for the differences in individual exercise responses and adaptations. Therefore, the aims of this data collection was to assess a sample of healthy UK adults within the East Anglia and East Midlands region and their potential genotype differences and see if there were any associations with their allelic information and improved training and health variables. To assess this, 17 participants preformed an 8-week training programme which included a 20-30 minute run, three times per week to improve cardio-respiratory fitness. Additionally 21 participants remained as the control group that did not partake in the training intervention to isolate the training effects. Within the overall data, we found there were a number of genotypes that individuals possessed that were significantly correlated to improved training fitness such as cardiorespiratory fitness and also improvements in body mass index. In fact, the more of these “positive alleles” someone possessed the greater their improvements were.

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