Endurance capacity is not correlated with endothelial function in male university students

Arteries and Hearts in Motion: Sex Differences in Exercise-Mediated Protection Against Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease Risk

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

This review summarizes the current knowledge on the benefits of various exercise training modalities on subclinical atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk factors (i.e., endothelial dysfunction, large artery stiffening, carotid artery intima-media thickening) across the adult lifespan and the moderating role of biological sex, with the goal of informing/being to inform research gaps and future research directions.

RECENT FINDINGS

Regular exercise is an effective intervention to counter subclinical risk factors for ASCVD. However, sex-specific variation has been observed in exercise training benefits. For example, aerobic exercise improves large artery stiffening in both middle-aged/older men and women and enhances endothelial function in middle-aged/older men; however, similar exercise-mediated improvements in endothelial function are not consistently observed in postmenopausal women Sex differences in exercise benefits may be related to differences in the sex hormone environment across the adult lifespan that influence cellular-molecular mechanisms, disconnecting favorable signaling in the vasculature induced by exercise training. Moreover, differences could be explained by social and/or psychological factors that make women more susceptible, on average, to barriers to exercise training compared to age-matched men.

Applicability of extracellular vesicles in clinical studies

BACKGROUND

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are submicron cellular fragments that mediate intercellular communication. EVs have in the last decade attracted major interest as biomarkers or platforms for biomarkers of health and disease. To better understand the reasons why despite great expectations and considerable effort, EV-based methods have not yet been introduced into clinical practice, we present a systematic analysis of published results of clinical studies.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Clinical studies on populations of body fluid samples, published from 2010 to including 2015, applying centrifugation of fluid human samples with centrifuge accelerations up to about 25 000 g and flow cytometry for detection of EVs were analysed with respect to statistical significance (p), statistical power (P), clinical significance (CS), defined as the difference between the means divided by the sum of standard deviations, and size of the populations (N_min ), defined as the number of samples in the smaller group.

RESULTS

Final analysis included 65 publications with 716 comparisons reporting 308 (43%) statistically significant differences (P < 0·05), 242 (34%) had statistical power P > 0·8 and 88 (12%) had clinical importance CS > 1·96. None of comparison with CS > 1·96 included populations in which the smaller group consisted of 50 or more samples.

CONCLUSIONS

To fulfil claimed expectations for EV-based methods as promising diagnostic tools, more evidence on EV-based mechanisms of diseases should be gathered. Also, the methods of EV harvesting and assessment should be improved to yield better repeatability and thus allow clinical studies with larger number of samples.