Francisco B Ortega

University of Granada | UGR · Departamento de Educación Física y Deportiva

Background: Accumulation of amyloid-β (Aβ) plaques is one of the main features of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Physical performance has been related to dementia risk and Aβ, and it has been hypothesized as one of the mechanisms leading to greater accumulation of Aβ. Yet, no evidence synthesis has been performed in humans. Objective: To investigate the...

Excessive adolescent sedentary behaviors (SBs) may affect cognitive-academic achievements; however, findings vary according to the SB evaluated and their mental requirements. This study aimed to understand the multi- variate association between different SBs and diverse cognitive-academic achievements as a primary analysis. As a secondary one, we d...

Importance Cardiovascular risk factors in youth have been associated with future cardiovascular disease (CVD), but conventional observational studies are vulnerable to genetic and environmental confounding. Objective To examine the role of genetic and environmental factors shared by full siblings in the association of adolescent cardiovascular ris...

Objectives The aim of this study was to examine the associations of adolescent cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), muscular fitness (MF), and speed‐agility fitness (SA) with middle‐aged cardiometabolic disease risk and explore sex differences. Methods This 45‐year prospective cohort study examined the associations between objectively measured fitness...

Concurrent training has been postulated as an appropriate time‐efficient strategy to improve physical fitness, yet whether the exercise‐induced adaptations are similar in men and women is unknown. An unblinded randomized controlled trial was conducted to investigate sex‐specific dose–response effects of a 24‐week supervised concurrent exercise trai...

Objectives The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of a 20-week exercise program on bone mineral parameters in children with overweight or obesity. Design Randomized controlled trial. Methods This study took part from November 21, 2014, to June 30, 2016, in Granada, Spain. A secondary analysis of this parallel-group randomized control...

Objectives To provide a comprehensive CERT (Consensus on Exercise Reporting Template)-based description of the resistance exercise program implemented in the AGUEDA (Active Gains in brain Using Exercise During Aging) study, a randomized controlled trial investigating the effects of a 24-week supervised resistance exercise program on executive funct...

Background The current knowledge about the molecular mechanisms underlying the health benefits of exercise is still limited, especially in childhood. We set out to investigate the effects of a 20‐week exercise intervention on whole‐blood transcriptome profile (RNA‐seq) in children with overweight/obesity. Methods Twenty‐four children (10.21 ± 1.33...

Cardiorespiratory fitness is one of the most important markers of health. Several studies have demonstrated the relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness and brain functioning in healthy children. Some of these works suggested that cardiorespiratory fitness may have a protective role on the executive function, which represents a set of cogniti...

Purpose Adequate skeletal loads during the adolescent growth spurt are elemental in building a robust skeleton. Adolescents with poorer motor competence are less active and develop a less robust skeleton compared to their peers with better develop motor competence. However, few longitudinal examinations of motor competence and skeletal loading thro...

Objective: To investigate whether a 20-week aerobic and resistance exercise program induces changes in brain current density underlying working memory and inhibitory control in children with overweight/obesity. Methods: A total of 67 children (10.00 ± 1.10 years) were randomized into an exercise or control group. Electroencephalography (EEG)-bas...

Background: The minimal and optimal daily step counts for health improvements remain unclear. Objectives: A meta-analysis was performed to quantify dose-response associations of objectively measured step count metrics in the general population. Methods: Electronic databases were searched from inception to October 2022. Primary outcomes include...

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of a 24-week aerobic + resistance training programs at moderate versus vigorous intensity on body composition, and the persistence of the changes after a 10-month free-living period, in young untrained adults. This report is based on a secondary analysis from the activating brown adipose tissue thro...

We investigated the interaction between a genetic score and an exercise intervention on brain health in children with overweight/obesity. One hundred one children with overweight/obesity (10.0 ± 1.5 years, 59% girls) were randomized into a 20-week combined exercise intervention or a control group. Several cognitive and academic outcomes were measur...

The objective of this longitudinal study was to analyze changes in physical activity, sedentary time, sleep, anxiety, mood, and perceived health as a result of COVID-19 pandemic in a cohort of Spanish university students, both during the home confinement and one year after. Additionally, we analyzed the associations between physical activity, seden...

Importance: Childhood obesity is a risk factor associated with type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and mental disorders later in life. Investigation of the parallel effects of a defined exercise program on cardiometabolic and mental health in children with overweight or obesity may provide new insights on the potential benefits of exercise on...

Background To quantify cardiovascular health (CVH), the American Heart Association (AHA) recently launched an updated construct of the “Life's Simple 7” (LS7) score, the “Life's Essential 8” (LE8) score. This study aims to analyse the association between both CVH scores and carotid artery plaques and to compare the predictive capacity of such score...

Providing individual- and population-level data on child physical fitness is a crucial public health and education priority, however, few national fitness monitoring, or surveillance systems are currently in practice globally. The FitBack network includes experts from diverse backgrounds with a common interest to improving the accessibility of phys...

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Public grant(s) – National budget only. Main funding source(s): - HEARTY-BRAIN - Effects of Exercise on Brain in Patients with Coronary Heart Disease: The Heart-Brain Connection. Andalusian Plan for Research Development and Innovation (PAIDI). University of Granada. Funding: 116.000 €. PI: F. Ortega...

Alzheimer’s disease is currently the leading cause of dementia and one of the most expensive, lethal and severe diseases worldwide. Age-related decline in executive function is widespread and plays a key role in subsequent dementia risk. Physical exercise has been proposed as one of the leading non-pharmaceutical approaches to improve executive fun...

Muscular strength has been positively associated with better brain health indicators during childhood obesity. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the positive impact of muscular strength in brain health are poorly understood. We aimed to study the association of muscular strength with neurology‐related circulating proteins in plasma in ch...

Objectives Fat depots localization has a critical role in the metabolic health status of adults. Nevertheless, whether that is also the case in children remains under‐studied. Therefore, the aims of this study were: (i) to examine the differences between metabolically healthy (MHO) and unhealthy (MUO) overweight/obesity phenotypes on specific abdom...

The background of this study is to examine the associations of individual and combined early morning patterns (i.e., active commuting to school, physical activity before school, having breakfast and good sleep) with white matter microstructure (WMM) and, whether the associated white mater microstructure outcomes were related to mental health outcom...

Objectives: (1) To develop reference values for health-related fitness in European children and adolescents aged 6–18 years that are the foundation for the web based, open-access and multi-language fitness platform (FitBack); (2) To provide comparisons across European countries. Methods: This study builds on a previous large fitness reference stud...

Background/Objectives: Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is inversely associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors and brain health impairments. However, the molecular mechanisms linking CRF to health in children are poorly understood. We aimed to examine protein levels related to brain health and CVD in plasma of fit compared to unfit c...

Objective: We investigated the association of anthropometric neonatal data (birth length and birth weight) and breastfeeding practices (exclusive and any breastfeeding) with hippocampal functional connectivity and its academic implication in children with overweight/obesity. Methods: Ninety six children with overweight/obesity aged 8-11 years (10.0...

Background Emerging research supports the idea that exercise positively affects neurodevelopment. However, the mechanisms linking exercise with brain health are largely unknown. We aimed to investigate the effect of exercise on (a) blood biomarkers selected based on previous evidence (brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB...

Importance Excess abdominal fat is a major determinant in the development of insulin resistance and other metabolic disorders. Increased visceral adipose tissue (VAT) seems to precede the development of insulin resistance and is therefore a prime target of childhood lifestyle interventions aimed at preventing diabetes. Objectives To examine the ef...

Objectives: To examine the association between physical activity, sedentary time, and physical fitness with the shapes of subcortical brain structures in children with overweight/obesity. Further, we analyzed whether differences in the shapes of subcortical brain structures were related to intelligence. We hypothesized that those children with hig...

Resumen Antecedentes La evaluación de la condición física en jóvenes es importante desde el punto de vista educativo, deportivo y de salud. El proyecto FitBack, financiado por la Comisión Europea, ha desarrollado una herramienta que permite interpretar los resultados de la evaluación de la condición física en niños/as y adolescentes de forma indivi...

RESUMEN La evaluación de la condición física en jóvenes es importante desde el punto de vista educativo, deportivo y la salud. El proyecto FitBack, financiado por la Comisión Europea, ha desarrollado una herramienta que permite interpretar los resultados de la evaluación de la condición física en niños/as y adolescentes de forma individualizada. El...

Objectives To examine 1) the chronic effects of a 20-week physical exercise program on device-assessed sleep and on sleep-disordered breathing (SDB); and 2) whether attending to a session of the exercise program had effects on device-assessed sleep the subsequent night in children with overweight/obesity. Methods A total of 99 children with overwe...

Exercise modulates both brown adipose tissue (BAT) metabolism and white adipose tissue (WAT) browning in murine models. Whether this is true in humans, however, has remained unknown. An unblinded randomized controlled trial (ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT02365129) was therefore conducted to study the effects of a 24-week supervised exercise interventio...

Importance: Pediatric overweight and obesity are highly prevalent across the world, with implications for poorer cognitive and brain health. Exercise might potentially attenuate these adverse consequences. Objectives: To investigate the effects of an exercise program on brain health indicators, including intelligence, executive function, academi...

Background The measurement of physical fitness has a history that dates back nearly 200 years. Recently, there has been an increase in international research and surveillance on physical fitness creating a need for setting international priorities that could help guide future efforts. Objective This study aimed to produce a list of the top 10 inte...

OBJECTIVE In adults, there is evidence that improvement of metabolic-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) depends on the reduction of myosteatosis. In children, in whom the prevalence of MAFLD is alarming, this muscle-liver crosstalk has not been tested. Therefore, we aimed to explore whether the effects of a multicomponent intervention on hepati...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fped.2022.917152.].

Background Physical fitness is a powerful predictor of morbidity and mortality, and is therefore a useful indicator for public health monitoring. To assess physical fitness, field-based tests are time-efficient, inexpensive, have minimal equipment requirements, and can be easily administered to a large number of individuals. Objective The objectiv...

Purpose The aim of this study was to analyse the relationship between air pollution and 24-h movement guidelines in Spanish children/adolescents. Methods This cross-sectional study analysed secondary data from the Encuesta Nacional de Salud Española (2017), a representative survey for the Spanish population. The original dataset included 6016 Span...

Background Emerging research supports that exercise positively affects neurodevelopment. However, the mechanisms linking exercise with brain health are largely unknown. We aimed to investigate the effect of exercise on (i) blood biomarkers selected based on previous evidence (brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), cathep...

Importance: Childhood obesity is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes (T2D), cardiovascular disease, and mental disorders later in life. To investigate the parallel effects on cardiometabolic and mental health in children with overweight or obesity will provide new insights on the benefits of exercise on overall health. Objective: This study aimed to...

Background Technological advances have recently made possible the estimation of maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max) by consumer wearables. However, the validity of such estimations has not been systematically summarized using meta-analytic methods and there are no standards guiding the validation protocols. Objective The aim was to (1) quantitativ...

Study question Do sperm quality parameters differ between “high” and “low” cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and muscular strength levels in healthy young men? Summary answer Self-reported CRF was positively associated with sperm count and concentration, while muscular strength (objectively measured and self-reported) did not correlate with seminal...

Background The links of sedentary behavior and physical activity with health outcomes in children and adolescents is well known. However, the molecular mechanisms involved are poorly understood. We aimed to synthesize the current knowledge of the association of sedentary behavior and physical activity (acute and chronic effects) with gene expressio...

Objectives Low sleep quality and duration are associated with the development of overweight and obesity. This link is discussed to result from an unfavorable selection of food items after sleep deprivation on the one hand; on the other hand, fatigue also reduces the willingness to engage in physical activity. Furthermore, sleep duration and quality...

Objectives (1) To develop reference values for health-related fitness European children and adolescents aged 6–18 years that are the foundation for the web-based, open-access and multi-language fitness platform (FitBack); (2) To provide comparisons across European countries. Methods This study builds on a previous large fitness reference study in...

Aim: Adipokines seem to play a role in bone morphogenesis, although this also depends on the mechanical forces applied to the skeleton. The aim was to assess the relationships of resting leptin and adiponectin with bone parameters and whether high muscular fitness levels affect these relationships in children with overweight or obesity. Methods:...

Approximately 4–11% of children suffer from sleep-disordered breathing (SDB), and children with obesity are at increased risk. Both obesity and SDB have been separately associated with poorer brain health, yet whether SDB severity affects brain health in children with obesity remains unanswered. This study aimed to examine associations of SDB sever...

Introduction: Handgrip strength (HGS) asymmetry may help identify the functional asymmetries that contribute to mobility limitations. We sought to determine the associations of HGS asymmetry on gait speed and standing balance in older Americans. Materials and Methods: The analytic sample included 8,396 adults aged ≥65-years for the last wave in whi...

Background and Aims This study aims to examine associations of food portion sizes (PS) with markers of insulin resistance (IR) and clustered of metabolic risk score in European adolescents. Methods 495 adolescents (53.5% females) from the HELENA study were included. The association between PS from food groups and HOMA-IR index, VO2 max, and metabo...

Objective: To analyze whether 13 weeks of Integrative Neuromuscular Training can benefit spatiotemporal and kinematic parameters of gait in children with overweight/obesity. Methods: This is a non-randomized controlled trial. Fifty children (10.77 ± 1.24 years, 31 girls) with overweight/obesity were allocated to an exercise group (EG) (n=25) tha...

Background: This study aimed to investigate the associations of grip strength with incidence and mortality from dementia and whether these associations differ by sociodemographic and lifestyle factors. Methods: A total of 466 788 participants of the UK Biobank (median age 56.5 years, 54.5% women). The outcome was all-cause dementia incidence and...

Exercise interventions in mental disorders have evidenced a mood-enhancing effect. However, the association between physical activity and affect in everyday life has not been investigated in adult individuals with ADHD, despite being important features of this disorder. As physical activity and affect are dynamic processes in nature, assessing thos...

the benefits of physical activity (PA) and sleep for health, accurate and objective population-based surveillance is important. Monitor-based surveillance has potential, but the main challenge is the need for replicable outcomes from different monitors. This study investigated the agreement of movement behavior outcomes assessed with four research-...

Background: The early detection and management of children with metabolic associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) is challenging. Objective: To develop a non-invasive and accurate prediction protocol for the identification of MAFLD among children with overweight/obesity candidates to confirmatory diagnosis. Methods: A total of 115 children aged...

Objectives To investigate the effects of exercise on intelligence, executive functions, academic performance and brain outcomes in children with overweight/obesity. In secondary analyses, we explored potential mediators and moderators of the exercise effects. Methods A total of 109 children (8-11.9y) with overweight/obesity were randomized (intent...

This study aimed to compare sedentary time (SED) and intensity‐specific physical activity (PA) estimates and the associations of SED and PA with body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) using three different sets of cut‐points in preschool‐aged children. A total of 751 children (4.7 ± 0.9 years, boys 52.7%) wore an ActiGraph GT3X+BT accel...

Background Consumer wearables and smartphone devices commonly offer an estimate of energy expenditure (EE) to assist in the objective monitoring of physical activity to the general population. Alongside consumers, healthcare professionals and researchers are seeking to utilise these devices for the monitoring of training and improving human health....

Objectives: Examine the validity and reliability of parent-reported International FItness Scale (IFIS) in preschool-age children. Method: A cross-sectional study of 3051 Spanish preschoolers (3-5 years). Fitness was measured by PREFIT fitness test battery and reported by parents using an adapted version of the IFIS. Waist circumference was evalu...

Objective To evaluate the associations of parent-reported sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) and device-assessed sleep behaviors with behavioral and emotional functioning in pediatric overweight/obesity. Study design A total of 109 children with overweight/obesity (10.0±1.1 years) were included in this cross-sectional study. We used the Spanish vers...

Neurotrophic factors and cardiorespiratory fitness are both considered important in developmental trajectories but their link to brain health remains poorly understood. The aims of the study were to examine whether levels of plasma-derived neurotrophic factors were associated with brain health indicators in children with overweight or obesity; and...

The independent associations of body composition and physical fitness components with cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in childhood are not fully understood. Thus, this cross-sectional study examined the independent associations of body composition and physical fitness with CVD risk factors in Swedish 9-year-old children (n = 411). Unadjus...

Physical fitness is a strong marker of health, but objective fitness measurements are not always feasible. The International FItness Scale (IFIS) for self-reported fitness is a simple-to-use tool with demonstrated validity and reliability; however, validation in pregnancy needs to be confirmed. Also, its association with cardiometabolic health in p...

Childhood obesity and its negative relation with children’s brain health has become a growing health concern. Over the last decade, literature has indicated that physical activity attenuates cognitive impairment associated with obesity and excess adiposity in children. However, there is no comprehensive review that considers the extent to which the...

Background & aims Exposure to a suboptimal environment during the fetal and early infancy period’s results in long-term consequences for brain morphology and function. We investigated the associations of early life factors such as anthropometric neonatal data (i.e., birth length, birth weight and birth head circumference) and breastfeeding practice...

Objectives To examine the relationship between physical fitness and physical activity (PA) with specific abdominal fat depots and their potential implications for cardiometabolic risk and insulin resistance (IR) in children with overweight/obesity. Materials and Methods A total of 116 children with overweight/obesity (10.7±1.1 yr, 54% girls) parti...

Objectives High cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) levels reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) during adulthood. However, little is known about the molecular mechanisms underlying the health benefits of high CRF levels at the early stage of life. This study aimed to analyze the whole-blood transcriptome profile of fit children wi...

Abstract Background While physical activity has consistently been associated with decreased mortality rates, it remains unknown if there is a single “ideal” combination of time in physical activities of different intensities and sedentary behavior (SB) associated with the lowest rate. This study examined the associations of combinations of time in...

Background Physical fitness is an important marker of current and future health status, yet the association between physical fitness and indicators of mental health in youth has not been systematically reviewed and meta-analyzed. Objective The aim of this work was to systematically review and meta-analyze the association between physical fitness c...