Vibration is a mechanical stimulus that is characterized by an oscillatory motion. When there is a direct contact of a person, in general standing on the base of this type of platform, the vibration that is produced in these machines is transmitted to the body of the subject producing whole body vibration (WBV) exercises. Biological effects can be associated with the WBV exercises with desirable and undesirable consequences. These effects of the WBV exercises seem to be related to a direct effect in a tissue/organ/system and/or or to indirect effects due to alteration of the plasma concentration of some hormonal and non hormonal biomarkers. The aim of this investigation is to present a revision about hormonal and non hormonal biomarkers in human beings submitted to WBV exercises that have suffered alteration in the plasma concentrations. Searches were performed in the PubMed and Scopus databases with the key words "whole body vibration". Papers were selected following defined criteria. Considering the WBV exercise, hormonal fluctuations of testosterone, growth, insulin-like growth factor1, epinephrine, norepinephrine, cortisol, irisin, parathyroid hormone and sclerotin are observed. Non hormonal biomarkers have suffered alterations in response to WBV, as glucose, free fatty acids, adiponectin, transforming growth factor-beta1, nitric oxide, osteopontin, interleukin-1beta, bonespecific alkaline phosphatase, cartilage oligometric matrix protein and tumor necrosis factor-alpha in plasma concentration. In conclusion, putting together the findings related to the alterations of the concentration of hormonal and non hormonal biomarkers due to the WBV exercises, it is possible that the fluctuations in the plasma concentrations of these biomarkers might help us understand better the biological effects of this kind of exercises, probably due to neuroendrocrine responses.

Whole body vibration (WBV) exercises in oscillating platforms (OP) have emerged in sports and in the rehabilitation procedures of clinical disorders. The aim of this work was to verify the effects of vibrations on the osmotic fragility (OF) of red blood cells (RBC) isolated from whole blood submitted to OP. Heparinized blood samples were withdrawn from German dog, and distributed in tubes that were divided in three sets. A set of tubes was submitted to 0 Hz (control), the second set of tubes was submitted to 10 Hz and the third set to 20 Hz for 1 min in an OP. Then the OF of the RBC was determined, and the results indicate that the vibration promotes an increase on the hemolysis from 9 ± 1 to 20 ± 2% with 10 and 20 Hz, respectively. The shape of the OF curves for 10 and 20 Hz were similar. A significant difference (P<0.05) was found when a comparison was done with the control curve (0 Hz) and the experimental sets (10 and 20 Hz). Our findings therefore indicate that the increase of the frequency from 10 to 20 Hz seems to induce damage on the RBC membrane and this effect was dependent on the frequency. In addition, we suggest precaution with the use of the vibration generated in OP.