Additional Cardiovascular Benefits with the Association of Combined Physical Training to Enalapril Treatment in Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats

Introduction Arterial hypertension (AH) is one of the causes of chronic kidney disease. Treatment consists of antihypertensive drugs and physical training. However, the impact on blood pressure (BP) and cardiovascular variability has not yet been fully understood. Objective To investigate the effects of combined physical training (CPT) associated with pharmacological treatment on BP, BP variability and renal parameters. Method SHR rats were divided into 2 groups (n=8/group): sedentary + enalapril or trained + enalapril (MSE and MTE). Both were treated with 3mg/kg of enalapril for 8 weeks. The MTE was submitted to CPT, 3 days/week. A 24‐hour urine collection and direct BP and heart rate (HR) recording were performed. The variability of systolic BP was assessed in the time and frequency domain (FFT). Results In the aerobic and resistance tests, the MTE group (2.7 ± 0.1 km/h; 852 ± 26.06 g) increased performance when compared to the initial test (p=0.0001) and to the MSE group (2.0 ± 0.1 km/h; 603 ± 30.02g) at the end of the protocol. There was no difference between groups in renal tissue weight (p=0.52), urinary volume (p=0.13) and HR (p=0.11). Despite there was no difference in the standard deviation of the mean (p=0.19) and in the variance of systolic BP (p=0.19) between groups, the MTE showed a lower mean BP (162.4 ± 2 vs. 177.6 ± 1 mmHg) and a sympathetic vascular component of BP variability (LF: 9.89 ± 2.08 vs. 23.73 ± 1.78 mmHg²) compared to the MSE group. Conclusion CPT associated with treatment with enalapril induced additional BP and vascular sympathetic modulation reduction in relation to the isolated pharmacological treatment. Additional studies can assess the impact of these benefits on the kidneys.