Circulating angiogenic and inflammatory cytokine responses to acute aerobic exercise in trained and sedentary young men

Endurance exercise training can ameliorate many cardiovascular and metabolic disorders and attenuate responses to inflammatory stimuli. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the angiogenic and pro-inflammatory cytokine response to acute endurance exercise differs between endurance-trained and sedentary young men. Ten endurance-trained and ten sedentary healthy young men performed 30 min of treadmill running at 75 % VO2max with blood sampling before and after exercise. Plasma concentrations of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha, interleukin (IL)-8, IL-6, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), placental growth factor (PlGF), and soluble VEGF receptor-1 (sFlt-1) were measured by multiplex ELISA. Acute exercise increased IL-6 by 165 % (P < 0.05), IL-8 by 32 % (P < 0.05), PlGF by similar to 16 % (P < 0.05), sFlt-1 by 36 % (P < 0.001), and tended to increase bFGF by similar to 25 % (P = 0.06) in main effects analyses. TNF-alpha and VEGF did not change significantly with exercise in either group. Contrary to our hypothesis, there were no significant differences in TNF-alpha, IL-6, VEGF, bFGF, PlGF, or sFlt-1 between groups before or after acute exercise; however, there was a tendency for IL-8 concentrations to be higher in endurance-trained subjects compared to sedentary subjects (P = 0.06). These results indicate that 30 min of treadmill running at 75 % VO2max produces a systemic angiogenic and inflammatory reaction, but endurance exercise training does not appear to significantly alter these responses in healthy young men.