Effects of Aerobic Interval Exercise Training on Cardiac Fibrosis

According to the statistics of our Ministry of Health and Welfare, heart disease has ranked the second in the top ten causes of death in people of Taiwan since 2004. An increase of 40% of people in Taiwan died of heart disease within the period between 2002 and 2011. Heart failure imposes a huge economic burden of $108 billion annually in a report of surveying 197 countries covering 98.7% of the world's population. A series of diseases cause cardiac remodeling. In this case, cardiac fibroblasts (CFs) are activated and resulted in cardiac fibrosis. Heart size, shape, and response to mechanical, chemical, or electrical signals will change in the cardiac fibrosis, and ultimately lead to the loss of heart function. According to the American Heart Association practice guidelines, exercise training should be considered for all stable cardiac patients (Class I, Level A). Therefore, exercise is an important issue for cardiac patients. We hypothesized that the appropriate exercise training can improve hemodynamics and change the blood components. These training effects may inhibit the CF activity, reduce cardiac fibrosis, and finally improve cardiac contractility. Sequential experiments will be done to prove our assumptions. The 1st year: In this year, development of the analysis methodology for CF traction force (CTF), membrane capacitance (Cm), cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET), and clinical information.; the 2nd year: Comparison of the serum effects on CTF and Cm, cardiac MRI, CPET, and clinical information before and after exercise training; the 3rd year: Comparison of the intracellular protein contents from CF separately treated with serum for 24-72 hours before and after exercise by Proteomics. In the first year, we plan to recruit 20 cardiac patients aged about 55 years. Blood sampling of, Cre, lipid profile, Hba1c, hs-CRP, hematocrit, and BNP will be performed on the day of cardiac MRI examination before exercise training. In this stage, CPET examination and clinical information will also be carefully evaluated. Methodology for measuring CTF and Cm of CF (HCF-av cell line) in patient serum will be developed. In the second year, every cardiac patient will have 36 times of aerobic interval exercise training (40% and 80% peak workload). Similar studies as the first year will be done for cardiac patients after the exercise training. Comparison of all of the examinations before and after exercise will be made in this year. The protein changes between CF separately treated with the cardiac patient serum before and after exercise training for 24-72 hours will be analyzed by proteomics.

Project ID:PC10507-0271
External Project ID:MOST105-2314-B182-010