Fig. 1

The sex-stratified prevalence of metabolic syndrome and its components before and after aerobic exercise treatment. The empty bars represented the pre-treatment values and the black bars represented the post-treatment values. Metabolic syndrome and its individual factors were defined by NCEP ATP III. The cutoff points are as follows: waist circumference for central obesity: men ≥102 cm, women ≥88 cm; hypertension: SBP/DBP ≥130/85 mmHg; FPG ≥6.1 mmol/L, and (or) diabetes; TG ≥1.7 or HDL-C <1.04 mmol/L (men) or 1.30 mmol/L (women). *P value compared the difference of the prevalence of participants having low levels of HDL-C at pre- and post-training in women; ^#P-values compared sex differences of the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and its components were <0.05