Influence of chronic endurance exercise training on conduit artery retrograde and oscillatory shear in older adults

With aging, there tends to be an increase in retrograde and oscillatory shear in peripheral conduit arteries of humans. Whether the increase in shear rate is due to the aging process or an effect of a less active lifestyle that often accompanies aging is unknown. Therefore, we examined whether chronic endurance exercise training attenuates conduit artery retrograde and oscillatory shear in older adults.

Brachial and common femoral artery mean blood velocities and diameter were determined via Doppler ultrasound under resting conditions, and shear rate was calculated in 13 young (24 ± 2 years), 17 older untrained (66 ± 3 years), and 16 older endurance exercise-trained adults (66 ± 7 years).

Brachial artery retrograde (-9.1 ± 6.4 vs. -12.6 ± 9.4 s(-1); P = 0.35) and oscillatory (0.14 ± 0.08 vs. 0.14 ± 0.08 arbitrary units; P = 0.99) shear were similar between the older trained and untrained groups, whereas brachial artery retrograde and oscillatory shear were greater in older untrained compared to young adults (-5.0 ± 3.4, 0.08 ± 0.05 s(-1) arbitrary units, P = 0.017 and 0.048, respectively). There was no difference between the young and older trained brachial retrograde (P = 0.29) and oscillatory (P = 0.07) shear. Common femoral artery retrograde (-6.3 ± 2.9 s(-1)) and oscillatory (0.21 ± 0.08 arbitrary units) shear were reduced in older trained compared to the older untrained group (-10.4 ± 4.1 and 0.30 ± 0.09 s(-1) arbitrary units, both P = 0.005 and 0.006, respectively), yet similar to young adults (-7.1 ± 3.5 and 0.19 ± 0.06 s(-1) arbitrary units, P = 0.81 and 0.87, respectively).

Our results suggest that chronic endurance exercise training in older adults ameliorates retrograde and oscillatory shear rate patterns, particularly in the common femoral artery.