Objective. The purpose of the present review was to know the situation in regard to how different cardiometabolic parameters and/or cardiometabolic health markers are influenced in overweight or obese people when a high-intensity interval training programme is applied.
Methods. A bibliographic search was carried out in the PubMed database. A total of 93 articles were analyzed and after inclusion a exclusion criteria application it were reduced to 12 the useful articles.
Results. There is a maintenance or significant decrease in body mass index (2.1±0.3%), body mass (3.3%, ≈2%), fat mass (≈2%), and waist circumference. The effects on lipid values are varied between articles, certains significant decreases have occurred in some articles when we look cholesterol (32.4±5.2mg/dl), low-density lipoprotein (25.8±16.5mg/dl) and tryglicerides (22.9±3.4mg/dl), however other studies show that there are not changes in these parameters or even a slight increase after the intervention is observed. Some articles show a reduction on glucose (1.1±0.11mmol/l), diastolic and systolic blood pressure. Oxygen consumption peak suffers a significative increasing in the majority of studies analyzed(27.7±4.4%, 22.3±3.5%, 9.1%, 7.9%, 7.9%).
Conclusions. High-intensity interval training allows improvements in: waist circunference, insulin sensitivity, blood pressure, lipid profile and peak of oxygen consumption. It also could control body weight and reduce fat mass. However, it is not clear that it could be effective for the modification of lipid values due to the controversy in the results
