Biological Influence of Physical Exercise on Hemostasis

Abstract

Some of the benefits of physical activity may result from effects on hemostasis. However, the increased burden of cardiovascular complications and sudden death occurring during and immediately after exercise prompts investigation to elucidate the biological relationship between physical exercise and hemostatic function. Although both the hemostatic and fibrinolytic systems are strongly influenced by physical exercise, the outcomes of available studies to date are biased by several confounding variables, including the subjects investigated, the type, intensity, and duration of the exercise, and the methods used for hemostatic evaluation. Considering these variables and attempting to synthesize the available data, it seems reasonable to conclude that the biological changes induced by physical activity are consistent with a mechanistic model where acute and strenuous exercise is associated with a transient hypercoagulability state, particularly in untrained individuals. This is mostly due to increased thrombin generation, platelet hyperreactivity, and increased activity of several coagulation factors, especially factor VIII and von Willebrand factor. Contextually, increased fibrinolytic activity has been frequently reported after exercise. Such changes, however, seem completely reversible, as trained subjects at rest show a partial exhaustion of platelet function in addition to values of several parameters of both the coagulation and fibrinolytic systems that are globally comparable with or even lower than those observed in the sedentary population. These adaptive changes might be beneficial in the long term, offering some protection against the risk of thrombosis and adverse cardiovascular events in physically active individuals.

Intense flight and endotoxin injection elicit similar effects on leukocyte distributions but dissimilar effects on plasma-based immunological indices in pigeons

“…For example, monocytes decreased significantly following flight, contrary to our prediction, which was based upon increases in monocytes following exercise in humans (Nieman et al, 2003;Pedersen and Hoffman-Goetz, 2000;Nieman et al, 2001) and during migration in some passerine birds (Hegemann et al, 2012b). Additionally, thrombocytes were unaffected by flight, even though platelet number and coagulability increase in humans after exercise (Lippi and Maffulli, 2009). These contrasts may reflect deep taxonomic divisions, differences in relative intensity of the exercise, or both.…”

“…(2) Based on post-exercise changes in humans and mammals, eosinophils and monocytes should increase following flight. (3) By analogy with human studies, thrombocytes should increase post-flight because, immediately after exercise, human platelet numbers increase and blood shows 'hypercoagulability' (Lippi and Maffulli, 2009). (4) Natural antibody titres should decline post-flight because lymphocyte function and immunoglobulin levels typically fall after intense exercise (see also Nebel et al, 2012).…”

Alterações na capacidade funcional de pacientes após dois anos da cirurgia de revascularização do miocárdio

“…It has also been demonstrated that exercise intolerance predicts a poor physical ability to perform tasks of daily living [12]. Besides, regular physical exercise produces a variety of beneficial effects on health, such as increased longevity, decreased mortality and incidence of metabolic disorders, among other comorbidity [13].…”

Release of pro-coagulant microparticles after moderate endurance exercise

“…Since moderate physical exercise is known to lower the risk of cardiovascular diseases [9,10], we were interested to study the effect of moderate physical exercise on both concentration and pro-coagulant activity of circulating MP.…”