Exercise promotes healthy cardiovascular aging / 生理学报

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is an important factor threatening the health of the elderly. Aging leads to changes in the structure and function of the cardiovascular system, which increases the risk of CVD in the elderly. Cardiac aging is characterized by increased left ventricular wall thickness, increased degree of myocardial fibrosis, increased cardiac hardness, and decreased cardiac function, while vascular aging is characterized by enlarged lumen, thickened wall, and endothelial dysfunction. Promoting healthy cardiovascular aging means reducing the age-related cardiovascular dysfunction and the risks of CVD. Exercise is a crucial means for the treatment and rehabilitation of CVD. Exercise reduces the risk factors of CVD, remodels the cardiovascular structure, and increases the resistance of heart to detrimental stimulus, which promotes healthy cardiovascular aging. The improved mitochondrial function via exercise plays a key role in the health effects of exercise. In addition, exercise promotes the secretion of exerkines in various tissues and organs, which plays a role in reducing inflammation, improving metabolism, inhibiting apoptosis, etc., thus benefiting cardiovascular health. This review discusses the mechanism and potential application of exercise in promoting healthy cardiovascular aging. Exploring the specific mechanisms underlying exercise-induced cardiovascular health and formulating accurate exercise prescriptions for different populations is an important direction to promote healthy cardiovascular aging and prevent CVD.

Exercise preconditioning attenuates the lipid metabolic disorder induced by chronic high fat diet feeding in mice / 生理学报

Mounting evidence has shown that exercise exerts extensive beneficial effects, including preventing and protecting against chronic diseases, through improving metabolism and other mechanisms. Recent studies have shown that exercise preconditioning affords significant cardioprotective effects. However, whether exercise preconditioning improves high fat diet (HFD)-induced obesity and lipid metabolic disorder remains unknown. The study was aimed to explore the effects of exercise preconditioning on HFD-induced obesity and lipid metabolic disorder in mice. 4-week-old C57BL/6 mice were subjected to swimming or sedentary control for 3 months, and then were fed with normal diet (ND) or HFD for 4 more months. The results showed that the blood glucose was decreased, and the glucose tolerance and grip strength were increased in exercised mice after training. Exercise preconditioning failed to improve HFD-induced body weight gain, but improved HFD-induced glucose intolerance. Exercise preconditioning showed no significant effects on both exercise capacity and physical activity in ND- and HFD-fed mice. HFD feeding increased total cholesterol and low density lipoprotein (LDL) levels in circulation, promoted subcutaneous fat and epididymal fat accumulation in mice. Exercise preconditioning increased circulating high density lipoprotein (HDL) and decreased circulating LDL, without affecting the subcutaneous fat and epididymal fat in HFD-fed mice. HFD feeding increased liver weight and hepatic total cholesterol contents, and dysregulated the expressions of several mitochondria function-related proteins in mice. These abnormalities were partially reversed by exercise preconditioning. Together, these results suggest that exercise preconditioning can partially reverse the HFD-induced lipid metabolic disorder and hepatic dysfunction, and these beneficial effects of exercise sustain for a period of time, even after exercise is discontinued.