Effect of exercise training on vascular function in active and inactive vascular beds

Introduction: Evidence exists that regular aerobic exercise benefits vascular health. This beneficial effect is potentially related to repeated increases in the flow of blood across endothelial cells during exercise. We hypothesised that any exercise effect on endothelial dependent dilation is localised to vascular beds in the exercised limb. An additional objective was to determine the effects of exercise training on circulating biomarkers of endothelial activation, including soluble adhesion molecules and cellderived microparticles. Methods: Nine overweight, sedentary men (age 34 ± 4 y (mean ± SD) BMI 29.8 ± 4.3 kg.m-2, VO & 2peak 33.2 ± 4.6 ml.min-1.kg-1, systolic blood pressure 131.8 ± 8.6 mmHg, diastolic blood pressure 82.6 ± 4.6 mmHg) participated in the study. All volunteers underwent a two-week exercise intervention, which comprised of two-legged cycleergometry exercise (30-45 min at 70% VO & 2peak for 5 d of each week) combined with one arm handgrip exercise (one contraction every 2 s at 40% maximum voluntary contraction for half of each exercise session). Allocation of dominant and nondominant arm to handgrip training or control condition was counterbalanced. The control arm remained perfectly still during exercise. Results: Preliminary work indicated the medium term coefficient of variation for various indices of reactive hyperaemia to be between 10 and 15%. Peak reactive hyperaemia increased in both the handgrip and control arms following training (p<0.05) but the increase in the handgrip-trained arm was considerably greater (48 ± 12% vs. 16 ± 8%, p<0.05 for interaction). The duration of reactive hyperaemia and the total reactive hyperaemia increased in the handgrip-trained arm (p