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Updated: Aug 13, 2025

Short Session High Intensity Interval Training and Treadmill Assessment in Aged Mice
Published on: February 2, 2019
High-intensity interval training improves the vascular endothelial function comparing moderate-intensity interval
Mostafa Sabouri1, Farahnaz Amirshaghaghi2, Mahsa Mahabadi Hesari2
1Department of Exercise Physiology & Health Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran; Department of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA.
Objective:
Obesity is associated with endothelial dysfunction and cardiovascular diseases. Moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT) is a common method to improve endothelial function and the cardiovascular risk profile in obesity. However, in recent times, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) has become a popular alternative for MICT primarily because of its time efficiency. Therefore, we hypothesized that HIIT is superior to MICT in improving vascular function. We aimed to evaluate this hypothesis by conducting a meta-analysis and quantifying the effect of HIIT on flow-mediated dilation (FMD) in overweight/obese adults.
Methods:
Databases (Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed) were searched up to January 2022 for HIIT vs. moderate-intensity interval training (MICT) and HIIT vs. control (CON) studies on endothelial function assessed by flow-mediated dilation (FMD) in overweight and obese adults. From the included studies, standardized mean difference (SMD) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated.
Results:
8 studies with 208 participants were included in this meta-analysis. According to the 6 studies, HIIT improved the FMD with an overall change of %2.6 [(95% CI: 0.82 to 4.377), p = 0.004] compared to the MICT in overweight and obese adults. Moreover, based on the 5 studies that compared HIIT and CON, the results showed HIIT significantly increased FMD by 1.83% [(95% CI: 0.478 to 3.187), p = 0.008].
Conclusions:
These results showed that exercise training, particularly HIIT, could improve endothelial function in overweight and obese adults.
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