The association between walking speed and risk of cardiovascular disease in middle-aged and elderly people in Taiwan, a community-based, cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The aim of this study was to investigate the association between walking speed and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk among community-dwelling middle-aged and elderly populations in Taiwan. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional and community-based study with 400 participants aged 50 years and over recruited from a community health promotion project in 2014 in Guishan district, Taoyuan city. We excluded 91 people, and a total of 309 participants were eligible for analysis. The statistical methods used in this study were one-way ANOVA and the Chi-square test, Pearson’s correlation test and logistic regression model. RESULTS: In total, 309 participants (98 males and 211 females) aged 50 to 74 (62.05 ± 6.21) years without a CVD history were enrolled in this study. The walking speed gradually decreased from the low CVD risk group to the high CVD risk group (p < 0.05). A significant inverse association between walking speed and CVD risk was confirmed with a Pearson’s correlation coefficient of-0.143 (p < 0.05) in middle-aged people, but this significant inverse association was not shown in elderly people. The multivariate logistic regression model for predicting CVD risk and walking speed with an adjusted odds ratio (OR) was 0.127 (95% CI = 0.021–0.771) in middle-aged people with adjustment for sex, age, waist circumference (WC), hypertension (HTN), diabetes mellitus (DM), and hyperlipidemia (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Our study clearly shows that slow walking speed is associated with an increased risk of CVD in middle-aged people rather than in elderly people.