Does higher aerobic capacity reduce age-associated arterial stiffness in healthy adults?
Higher aerobic capacity is associated with reduced arterial stiffness, suggesting that physical conditioning may mitigate age-related vascular stiffening.
Even in normotensive, rigorously screened volunteers in whom SBP increased an average of only 14% between ages 20 and 90 years, major age-associated increases of arterial stiffness occur. Higher physical conditioning status, indexed by VO2max, was associated with reduced arterial stiffness, both within this predominantly sedentary population and in endurance trained older men relative to their less active age peers. These findings suggest that interventions to improve aerobic capacity may mitigate the stiffening of the arterial tree that accompanies normative aging.
Vaitkevicius et al. (1993) studied this question.