Abstract Background and aims Excessive inflammation in the early phases post-stroke is associated with poorer recovery. Cardiovascular exercise (CE) has anti-inflammatory effects but its capacity to attenuate the post-stroke inflammatory cascade remains unclear. We investigated the impact of 8 weeks of CE on the concentration of serum inflammatory biomarkers in patients with early subacute stroke. Methods Seventy-one patients with first-ever ischemic stroke (65 ± 22 days post-stroke) were randomly assigned to progressive high-intensity CE + standard care (n = 45) or standard care alone (n = 26). The concentrations of CRP, IL-6, IL-8, TNFα, IL-1β and IL-10 were measured at baseline and after the interventions using ELISA. Group differences after the interventions were analyzed using analysis of co-variance (ANCOVA) adjusted for baseline concentrations and sex. Results Compared with the CE + standard care group, the standard care group showed significant increases in pro-inflammatory IL-6 (MD (95% CI) = -4.00 (-7.30, -0.71); P = 0.0181), IL8 (MD (95% CI) = -4.83 (-9.27, -0.39); P = 0.0337), and TNFα (MD (95% CI) = -1.80 (-2.89, -0.72); P = 0.0015). The standard care group showed greater post-intervention concentrations of CRP (MD (95% CI) = -769.675 (-4532, 2993); P = 0.6829) and IL-1β (MD (95% CI) = -0.09 (-0.21, -0.03); P = 0.1425) but differences between groups did not reach statistical significance. IL-10 levels did not differ between groups (MD (95% CI) = -1.38 (-6.05, 3.30); P = 0.5570). Conclusions CE attenuates the inflammatory response commonly seen in early stages of stroke recovery. How this anti-inflammatory effect impacts specifically on different domains of stroke recovery is yet to be elucidated. Conflict of interest Nothing to disclose. Figure 1 - belongs to Results
Heras et al. (2026) studied this question.