The effect of continuous aerobic exercise on serum angiogenic and angiostatic factors in induction model of acute myocardial infarction male rats with coronary artery disease

Background. Aerobic training somewhat corrects endothelial dysfunction in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), but the most effective form of exercise is still unclear; therefore, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of 8 weeks of continuous aerobic exercise on serum vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) as an angiogenic factor and endostatin (ES) as an angiostatic factor in male rats with coronary artery disease.

Methods. The subjects of the present experimental study were 30 healthy male 2-months old Wistar rats divided into three groups: the experimental group, the control group with coronary artery disease, and the healthy control group. After rupturing 20 of the rats by isoproterenol, 10 rats in the experimental group performed eight weeks of continuous aerobic exercise on a treadmill, with an incremental intensity of 50% in the first session to 78% in the last session, whereas both control groups did not exercise. Seventy-two hours after the final training session, blood samples were taken for serum VEGF and ES indices, and one-way ANOVA with Scheffer posthoc tests was used to compare the mean of variables among the studied groups.

Results. The results showed that discontinuous aerobic exercise could increase the blood VEGF in rats with coronary artery disease (P≤0.01), while there was no difference in the level of endostatin in the experimental group compared with control groups (P>0.05).

Conclusion. It seems that continuous aerobic exercises can be used in the rehabilitation of patients with coronary artery disease and might be effective in the process of angiogenesis.