The influence of endurance training on left ventricular and catecholamine excretion at rest in elderly persons

To determine whether physical exercise improves left ventricular performance, changes nervous sympathetic tone in elderly persons, systolic time intervals (STIs), QT/QS2 ratio and adrenaline and noradrenaline urine excretion were measured at rest in elderly persons before and after 6 weeks of endurance training. The indexes of total electromechanical systole, LV ejection time (LVET) preejection period (PEP), PEP/LVET ratio remained significantly unchanged. After training QT/QS2 ratio as an index of sympathetiotone significantly decreased. Comparison of data noradrenaline and adrenaline excretion revealed higher values in the control group after 6 weeks of observation. In the trained group excretion of catecholamines was not significantly changed over the training period. These findings indicate that endurance training does not alter LV performance and diminish sympathetical tone evidenced by QS/QT index at rest. Adrenaline and noradrenaline excretion does not correlate with the changes of sympathetic nervous tone.