[Myocardial performance during therapeutic starvation in obese subjects]

The effect was studied of therapeutic total starvation of two weeks' duration on myocardial performance in 12 obeses patients. Half of these subjects were trained for 10 minutes daily on a bicycle ergometer, whilst the other half had no training. After two weeks of total fasting no significant changes were observed either inter- or intracollectively with regard to systolic time intervals, ejection fraction and the index of myocardial contractility, nor in respect to serum electrolytes. Physical training had no influence on the systolic time intervals and the other noninvasive parameters of left ventricular performance. The inclusion of previous data obtained in a similar investigation enabled the establishment of a correlation between the serum potassium level and the ejection franction.