Effects of Aerobic vs. Resistance Exercise on Vascular Function and Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor in Older Women

This study aimed to investigate the effects of different types of exercise (aerobic vs. resistance) on vascular function and vascular endothelial growth factor in older women. Forty-three older women, aged 65-75 years old, voluntarily participated in this study. All participants were randomly assigned to one of the following three groups: aerobic exercise (AE; n = 14), resistance exercise (RE; n = 15), and control (CG; n = 14) groups. All participants in the exercise groups performed their respective exercises for 60 min/day, three days/week, for 16 weeks. The intensity of aerobic and resistance exercises was determined using the individual heart rate reserve (40-60%) and RPE (12-13), respectively. The vascular function test included the brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (ba-PWV), carotid artery blood flow volume, and velocity. Participants' blood samples were collected to analyze the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). A significance level of 0.05 was set. Our results showed that ba-PWV improved following both AE (14.5%) and RE groups (11.1%) (all p < 0.05). Increases in carotid blood flow volume (AE: 15.4%, RE: 18.6%) and total artery peak velocity (AE: 20.4%, RE: 17%) were observed in AE and RE groups (p < 0.05), while flow total artery mean velocity (36.2%) and peak velocities (20.5%) were only increased in the aerobic exercise group (p < 0.05). VEGF was increased after resistance exercise (p < 0.05). Overall, aerobic exercise provides greater benefits on vascular function than resistance exercise but further research is needed on VEGF regarding whether this change is associated with vascular function improvement in older women.