ABSTRACT
The effects of voluntary exercise on resting systolic blood pressure and vascular lesions of stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats (stroke-prone SHR) were investigated with and without 1 % saline loading. Forty male stroke-prone SHR aged 7 weeks were assigned to one of 4 experimental groups. Each consisted 10 animals ; sedentary control (S), sedentary with 1 % saline loading (SS), exercised control (E), and exercised with 1 % saline loading (ES) . Animals were sacrificed at the 5 th week. In the prehypertensive phase, resting caudal arterial systolic blood pressure was significantly lower in the E group than in the S group. However, after being loaded with 1 % saline, the ES group showed higher resting systolic blood pressure than those of the SS group. In addition, the ES group revealed severer renal, myocardial, and cerebrovascular lesions than those of the rest of the groups.