Aerobic exercise training increases parasympathetic activity and decreases sympathetic tone, potentially restoring autonomic balance and improving outcomes in patients with cardiac disease.
Does aerobic exercise training improve autonomic function in patients with cardiac disease?
This review highlights that chronic aerobic exercise training can restore autonomic balance by increasing parasympathetic and decreasing sympathetic activity, potentially improving outcomes in cardiac disease.
The complex interplay between the dichotomous subdivisions of the autonomic nervous system establishes and maintains a delicately tuned homeostasis in spite of an ever-changing environment. Aerobic exercise training can increase activity of the parasympathetic nervous system and decrease sympathetic activity. Conversely, it is well-documented that cardiac disease is often characterized by attenuated parasympathetic activity and heightened sympathetic tone. A correlation between autonomic disequilibrium and disease has led to the hypothesis that exercise training, as a therapy that restores the autonomic nervous system towards normal function, may be associated with, and possibly responsible for, outcome improvements in various populations. This is merely one of the many benefits that is conferred by chronic exercise training and reviewed in this issue.
Goldsmith et al. (Wed,) conducted a review in Cardiac disease. Aerobic exercise training was evaluated. Aerobic exercise training increases parasympathetic activity and decreases sympathetic tone, potentially restoring autonomic balance and improving outcomes in patients with cardiac disease.
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