Inflammatory and Endothelial Adaptations to Aerobic and Strength Training in Hypertensive Middle‐Aged Individuals: a Controlled Randomized Clinical Trial
Authors: Boeno Francesco , Ramis Thiago Rozales , Munhoz Samuel R , Reischak‐Oliveira Alvaro 
Published: June 2021

Hypertension is a worldwide prevalent disease, it's estimated that more than one billion of the world population is hypertensive, most of them middle‐aged productive people. Additionally, hypertension is associated with progression of the atherosclerosis and the main cause of death by myocardial infarction and stroke. This context is characterized by a marked inflammatory process that leads to an endothelial impairment. In the other hand, lifestyle modifications like physical exercise have been emerged as important non pharmacological tool to improve the treatment. However it's not fully understood how the different exercise ways, strength and aerobic exercises, can modulate inflammatory and endothelial markers in hypertensive individuals. Thus, the main goal of this study was to evaluate the inflammatory, endothelial and ambulatory blood pressure adaptations to twelve weeks of aerobic and strength training program. This study was approved by local ethic committee under the protocol: 2.199.957 and registered in the clinical trials (ID: NCT03282942) being in agreement with the Helsinki declaration. Forty‐five hypertensive middle‐aged individuals (23 women and 22 men) were randomized in three groups: aerobic training (AT: 15 individuals 47,3 ± 6,2 years); strength training (ST: 15 individuals 46,4 ± 8,1) and control group (CON: 15 individuals 45,4 ± 7,3 years). C‐reactive protein (CRP), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF‐a), interleukin 10 (IL‐10) and monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP‐1) were evaluated as inflammatory biomarkers. Nitrite and Nitrate (NOx) and Endothelin‐1 (ET‐1) concentrations were used to access the endothelial function. The average of 24h systolic (24hSBP), and diastolic blood pressure (24hDBP) was accessed using an automated oscillometric device. Day‐time systolic (DTSBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DTDBP), as well as night‐time systolic (NTSBP) and diastolic blood pressure (NTDBP) was also calculated. After twelve weeks of AT, ST or CON, a two‐way ANOVA founds time effects for CRP (3,1 ± 2,4 vs. 1,8 ± 0,8 mg/dl p = 0,05), IL‐10 (38,3 ± 23,5 vs. 49,5 ± 25,5 pg/ml) and MCP‐1 (121,1 ± 60,2 vs 84,5 ± 41,6 pg/ml) only in the AT groups. There are also time effects for NOx (9,9 ± 6,9 vs. 13,3 ± 3,7 μM p = 0,04) and ET‐1 (9,3 ± 8,9 vs. 6,5 ± 4 pg/ml p = 0,04) in the AT group. The 24SBP and DTSBP showed a significant decrease in the AT group (116,8 ± 8,5 vs. 109,04 ± 8,9 mmHg p = 0,005 and 121,27 ± 7,79 vs 111,46 ± 11,24 mmHg p = 0,04), while in the ST group DTSBP decreases (125,94 ± 5,2 vs 118,92 ± 6,5 mmHg p = 0,006). No changes in the CONT groups were observed, additionally no interactions between groups were found. The main feedings of the present study shows that AT can positively modulate the inflammatory profile, endothelial function and 24hSBP of middle‐aged hypertensive individuals, while ST promotes a significant improvement only in the DTSBP. Thus, we support that aerobic exercises should be emphasized as tool in the control and progression of the systemic arterial hypertension.

Support or Funding Information

This study was funded by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq, Brazil)

This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.