Exercise Prevents Hypertension and Disrupts the Correlation Between Vascular Sympathetic Activity and Age-Related Increase in Blood Pressure in SHRs

Abstract

BACKGROUND Hypertension usually accompanies the elevated sympathetic activity and sleep interruption. Few researches explored the dynamic changes and possible correlations in cardiovascular functions and sleep patterns during the development of hypertension. In contrast, exercise training provides several benefits on cardiovascular and sleep function in hypertensive subjects. However, controlling various factors during a long period of exercise training is difficult in hypertensive subjects, an animal model may be essential. This study aimed to explore dynamic changes in cardiovascular functions and sleep patterns during the development period of hypertension (10–20 weeks old) in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) and effects of exercise intervention. METHODS We used the treadmill exercise model for 8 weeks and started when SHRs were 12 weeks old. Electroencephalogram, electromyogram, electrocardiogram, and blood pressure (BP) were recorded simultaneously for 24 hours once a week over 11 weeks. RESULTS Untrained SHRs revealed the age-related increments in BP, and the significant increasing slopes of differences on BP and vascular sympathetic activity were observed during the development period of hypertension. Compared with untrained rats, age-related increases in BP and vascular sympathetic activity were significantly suppressed in trained SHRs. Nevertheless, trained SHRs showed more quiet sleep time at partial weeks. The positive correlation between the differences from 10 weeks of vascular sympathetic activity and BP was disappeared in trained SHRs. CONCLUSIONS There existed the significant correlation between the dynamic changes of vascular sympathetic activity and age-related elevation of BP during the development period of hypertension; however, exercise prevented hypertension and disrupted this correlation.

Correlation of Body Measurements and Exercise With Blood Pressure Among Medical Students in Lahore

“…It is now a documented fact that regular exercise prevents hypertension by disrupting the correlation between sympathetic activity and agerelated increasing blood pressure. 20 A strong negative correlation was observed with number of days of exercise and duration of exercise with raised blood pressure in this study. Results of meta-analysis showed similar findings.…”

Benefits of combined exercise training on arterial stiffness and blood pressure in spontaneously hypertensive rats treated or not with dexamethasone

“…It is already established that SHR is characterized by neural alterations ( Bertagnolli et al, 2006 ; Masson et al, 2015 ; Duchatsch et al, 2021 ), accompanied by cardiac remodeling ( Pagan et al, 2015 ; Silva et al, 2017 ; Li et al, 2019 ; Duchatsch et al, 2021 ) and vessel structural and functional alterations ( Melo et al, 2003 ; Amaral and Michelini, 2011 ), which contribute to increase blood pressure. In the first part of the present study, we confirmed some previous results that SHR had higher BP, accompanied by an autonomic imbalance to the heart.…”

“…Exercise training is a worldwide non-pharmacological strategy to control hypertension, recognized by societies of hypertension ( Whelton et al, 2018 ; Williams et al, 20182018 ; Sharman et al, 2019 ; Unger et al, 2020 ; Barroso et al, 2021 ). Aerobic exercise is the major component of the training for hypertension and the mechanisms involved are restoration of baroreflex activity, normalization of the autonomic imbalance to the heart ( Masson et al, 2016 ; Ferreira-Junior et al, 2019 ) reduction of the higher sympathetic drive to the vessels ( Li et al, 2019 ; Miotto et al, 2021b ; Duchatsch et al, 2021 ), skeletal muscle arterioles remodeling ( Amaral and Michelini, 2011 ; Miotto et al, 2021b ), and capillary angiogenesis ( Amaral and Michelini, 2011 ; Miotto et al, 2021b ) among others. In addition, aerobic training has been shown to prevent and/or reverse arterial stiffness not only in hypertension, but in metabolic syndrome and aging ( Moraes-Teixeira Jde et al, 2010 ; Hasegawa et al, 2018 ; Guers et al, 2019 ; Miotto et al, 2021b ; Gioscia-Ryan et al, 2021 ; Lopes et al, 2021 ).…”

Effects of brisk walking on blood pressure in the Chinese Han occupational population with a sedentary lifestyle: A baseline control trial

“…Thus, brisk walking may have a greater impact on DBP in the elderly. This phenomenon may be due to the high basal BP in elderly participants; it may also be due to the increase in the vascular sympathetic activity with increasing age, which also has a stronger effect with exercise, showing that BP drops more significantly after exercise [27,28] . Thus, brisk walking is beneficial for BP control regardless of sex and age.…”