Background and aim: The risk of cardiovascular disease in women increases after menopause. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of aerobic exercise at moderate intensity levels of cystatin C  and some cardiovascular risk factors in inactive postmenopausal women.

Methods: In this quasi-experimental study, 24 sedentary postmenopausal women (50-65 years) were  randomly divided into two experimental groups (n=14) and control group (n=10) groups. The experimental groups performed an aerobic training with 65 to 75% of maximum heart rate , 3 days per week for 10 weeks. Body fat percentage and serum levels of cystatine C with high sensitivity, C-reactive protein, HDL, LDL, triglyceride, cholesterol and blood pressure were measured at baseline and after training. Data were analyzed using analysis of covariance test.  

Results: No significant difference was seen  after performing aerobic training on serum levels of cystatin C (p=0.761), C-reactive protein with high sensitivity (p=0.378), triglyceride (p=0.48)   ), high-density lipoprotein (p=0.54), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (p=0.86), cholesterol (p=0.67), percent body fat (p=0.57) between the two groups. There was no significant difference between control and experimental groups in the variable maximal oxygen uptake (p = 0.035) and systolic blood pressure (p =0.04).

Conclusion: It seems that short-term aerobic training have no effet on serum levels of cystatin c and some moderate-intensity cardiovascular risk factors like reactive protein C, total cholesterol, high density lipoproteins, lipoprotein help disabled density and blood pressure in  in inactive postmenopausal women.