The effect of aerobic exercise on serum creatine kinase activities

Aerobic exercise is now a common form of recreational exercise among young women. In a previous study, more than a third of a group of young mothers volunteering blood samples to establish a creatine kinase (CK) reference range for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) carrier detection regularly participated in aerobic exercise programs. Aerobic exercise programs include eccentric exercises. As eccentric exercise is known to produce a delayed CK peak, this study was carried out to determine the effect of aerobic exercise on serum CK activities. The postexercise serum CK activity peak was monitored in 15 young women (age range 20-23 years) following aerobic exercise classes (45 minutes on 3 consecutive days). Peak values at 24-48 hours following the last class ranged from 90 to 3473 U/liter, or 1.55 to 34.71 times resting values. It is concluded that aerobic exercise programs should be excluded in order to obtain accurate resting serum CK values for muscle disease diagnosis.