Effect of endurance exercise on cardiac marker and exercise-induced immune response

Due to increase of heart failure among athletics, biochemical and immunological investigations have indicated cardiac dysfunction and damage with changes in cardiac markers and inflammatory cytokine response after endurance exercises. Therefore, investigating the physiology and cardiac pathophysiology can help in providing a proper background for identifying the endangered athletes. This study was performed with the aim of investigating the effect of endurance exercises on cardiac markers and the inflammatory response in elite kayakers. This quasi-experimental study was performed in year 2007 on all national team male kayakers of Iran with age of 22/5±3/2 years, weight of 78/7±7/2 kilograms and height of 184± 4 cm, who were selected by random sampling method. Participants kayaked 8000 meters with 75-80% of maximal heart rate for 60 minutes. Blood samples were taken before, immediately after and three hours after the exercise in order to assess the levels of plasma NT-proBNP and IL-6. Data was analyzed by SPSS 16 using variance analysis with repeated measures and paired t-test. NT-proBNP levels significantly increased (24/05±9/6 vs 19/36±7/5 pg/ml; p<0/001), while the plasma IL-6 insignificantly decreased (0/755±0/29 to 0/715±0/19 pg/ml; p=0/91) in response to prolonged endurance kayaking. There was no correlation between IL-6 and NT-proBNP levels after exercise. Exercise-induced increase in NT-proBNP may represent physiologic reaction under special exercise conditions and seems to have no significant pathological importance. The insignificant decrease in plasma IL-6 provides no evidence of myocardial damage.