A new study has revealed that regular exercise, in short bursts, can help lower risks of cardiovascular disease and mortality, by improving overall metabolic health.
While we know that regular exercise has numerous benefits, till date, researchers have not been able to fully understand the precise molecular mechanisms that explain the link between being physically active and maintaining better health.
Hence, for this study, the researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) wanted to look at the association between metabolites that are indicators of health and exercise. Metabolism describes the chemical reactions that take place in our bodies, while metabolites are known to either facilitate these reactions or are their end result.
“Much is known about the effects of exercise on cardiac, vascular, and inflammatory systems of the body, but our study provides a comprehensive look at the metabolic impact of exercise by linking specific metabolic pathways to exercise response variables and long-term health outcomes,” said Dr Gregory Lewis, section head of heart failure at MGH and senior author of the study.
The researchers made use of data from the Framingham Heart Study (FHS), a long-term study directed by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (Maryland, USA) for their study. They measured 588 metabolites in 411 middle-aged people before and immediately after 12 minutes of physical activity on an exercise bike. This allowed them to see the effect that exercise has on the metabolome.
Overall, the researchers found that the short burst of exercise significantly altered 80% of a participant’s metabolites. Particularly, they observed that the metabolites associated with adverse health outcomes when resting were reduced. For instance, high levels of glutamate have been linked to diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension; researchers found that these levels fell by 29% following exercise. The levels of dimethylguanidino valerate (DMGV) associated with liver disease and diabetes, fell by 18% following exercise.
“Intriguingly, our study found that different metabolites tracked with different physiologic responses to exercise, and might therefore provide unique signatures in the bloodstream that reveal if a person is physically fit, much the way current blood tests determine how well the kidney and liver are functioning,” explained Dr Matthew Nayor, a cardiologist in the heart failure and transplantation section of MGH.
By combining the information they gained from this analysis with blood samples taken during previous rounds of the FHS, the researchers were also able to determine the longer-term effects of exercise on a person’s metabolome.
“We’re starting to better understand the molecular underpinnings of how exercise affects the body and use that knowledge to understand the metabolic architecture around exercise response patterns,” noted Dr Ravi Shah of the heart failure and transplantation section of MGH.
Researchers hope that this approach will have the potential to target the response to exercise of people with high blood pressure or many other metabolic risk factors and, in turn, set them on a healthier path early in their lives.
