Effect of 8-week resistance trainings in different environmental conditions on endothelial progenitor cells and some cardiovascular risk factors in overweight men

Vascular endothelial dysfunction is pathological conditions that may be due to complications of obesity in various arteries. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of 8 weeks resistance training in different environmental conditions on endothelium progenitor cells (EPCS) (Marker of CD34), oxidized-LDL (oxLDL) and C-reactive protein (CRP) in overweight men.

For this Purpose, 30 overweigh male students in Kermanshah city with the mean age of 19.8± 1.13 yr participated in this study, voluntarily. Subjects randomly assigned into 3 groups including hypoxic and normoxic resistance training, and hypoxic exposure. Participants performed the protocols 3 days per week for 8 weeks with 70% of 1RM. The oxLDL, CRP, and CD34 were measured before and after the intervention. T-test, one-Way ANOVA, Wilcoxon and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to analyzing the data.

There was a significant decrease in CRP and oxLDL levels in the hypoxic resistance (P=0.001, P=0.005), normoxic resistance (P=0.003, P=0.013) and hypoxic exposure (P=0.003, P=0.005), respectively. However, no significant difference was observed between variations of the groups. The cells of CD34 was increased after the hypoxic resistance (P=0.005), normoxic resistance (P=0.005), and hypoxia exposure (P=0.004). No significant difference was observed between variations of the groups.

Considering the similar effects of hypoxic exposure with other groups on study variables, it may be possible to use hypoxic exposure as a beneficial manner for some overweight individuals at the injury and special circumstances.