Differences in skeletal muscle between men and women with chronic heart failure

men and women with chronic heart failure. J Appl Physiol 90: 280–286, 2001.—Men with chronic heart failure (CHF) have alterations in their skeletal muscle that are partially responsible for a decreased exercise tolerance. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether skeletal muscle alter-ations in women with CHF are similar to those observed in men and if these alterations are related to exercise intoler-ance. Twenty-five men and thirteen women with CHF per-formed a maximal exercise test for evaluation of peak oxygen consumption (V̇O2) and resting left ventricular ejection frac-tion, after which a biopsy of the vastus lateralis was per-formed. Twenty-one normal subjects (11 women, 10 men) were also studied. The relationship between muscle markers and peak V̇O2 was consistent for CHF men and women. When controlling for gender, analysis showed that oxidative en