Effect of a strenuous aerobic exercise on sdLDL concentration in healthy men

Clinical studies indicated that small dense LDL (sdLDL) levels are more powerful than LDL levels for the determination of severe stable coronary heart disease (CHD). The effects of intensive aerobic exercise on sdLDL levels are not well known; thus the aim of present study was to investigate effect of a strenuous aerobic exercise on sdLDL concentration in healthy men.

Elevenhealthy young men (aged: 20.8 ± 1.8 years; ± SD) volunteered to participate in this study. All the subjects were performed Repeated High-Intensity Endurance Test (RHIET) as a strenuous aerobic exercise. Blood samples were taken at baseline and immediately after the RHIET. Wilcoxon and paired-sample t-test was used to analyze the data.

The results showed that sdLDL (38.8 ± 11.3 mg/dl vs. 39.9 ± 11.3 mg/dl), TC (188.6 ± 36.2 mg/dl vs. 194.1 ± 42.2 mg/dl), TG (139.6 mg/dl ± 55.0 vs. 157.7 ± 79.7 mg/dl), LDL (109.1 ± 33.4 mg/dl vs. 121.5 ± 53.0 mg/dl) and HDL (44.0 ± 13.6 mg/dl vs. 44.6 ± 14.0 mg/dl) remained unchanged in response to strenuous aerobic exercise. Significant correlation was observed between changes of sdLDL with TC (r = 0.74, P = 0.008), TG (r = 0.65, P = 0.02) and LDL (r = 0.64, P = 0.03) levels.

The results suggest strenuous aerobic exercise had not significant effect on blood lipids and lipoprotein subfractions.