Beta blockade and physical training in rats

Beta adrenergic blocking agents are widely used in the treatment of hypertension. Recent findings indicate that long-term physical training also could reduce elevated blood pressure and many physicians therefore recommend their patients to include physical training in their everyday program. However, it is not known whether a combination of beta blockade and physical training influences the responses of an organism to physical training. This problem was investigated using laboratory rats as an experimental animal model. Both swimming and running training were used, and a group of animals was trained without any medication while the other group performed their daily training session under the influence of 10 mg/kg of propranolol. Some of the effects produced by swimming training, such as hypertrophy of brown adipose tissue and heart muscle, resting bradycardia, increased tachycardic and tail skin temperature responses to isoprenaline, increased calorigenic response to noradrenaline and delayed cooling rate in cold water were similar to those produced by cold acclimation or repeated noradrenaline injections. It is thus tempting to conclude that the training-induced release of noradrenaline was responsible for the changes mentioned. Propranolol, when associated with the training, effectively hampered these changes. Running training increased the activity of oxidative enzymes in the skeletal muscle much more than did swimming training or repeated noradrenaline injections. Furthermore, running training neither induced hypertrophy of the brown fat nor enhanced calorigenic response to noradrenaline; it even led to enhanced rate of body cooling in cold water. Therefore the adaptive changes caused by running training most probably are not due to cold acclimation effects in spite of that propranolol, when associated with the running sessions, antagonized the development of running-induced changes, too. Some of these changes, such as cardiomegaly, training bradycardia and elevated aerobic capacity, are often used as measures of physical fitness. Assuming that the purpose of physical training is to increase physical fitness, then a combination of beta blockade with training does not serve the purpose.