PISA, Italy, April 26 (UPI) -- Exercise has been linked to a reversal of abnormal hormonal patterns underlying many of the symptoms of heart failure, Italian researchers find.
"A feasible home-based and progressively adjusted aerobic training strategy is able to overcome the limitation of pharmacological treatment in antagonizing neurohormonal activation in heart failure patients, likely contributing to a significant improvement in quality of life, and possibly to the positive prognostic effects," said Dr. Claudio Passino, of the CNR Institute of Clinical Physiology in Pisa, Italy.
After a cardiac event, the body increases the production of a B-type natriuretic peptide to help the heart pump blood in the short run by constricting blood vessels and retaining sodium in cardiac cells.
"This neurohormonal imbalance becomes detrimental on the long-term, promoting left ventricular fibrosis, dilatation, arrhythmias, peripheral tissue hypoperfusion and edemas," Passino said.
The study, published in Tuesday's Journal of the American College of Cardiology, indicated that aerobic training may be able to restore neurohormonal balance in a way that may improve on current drug therapies.
