THE IMPACT OF REPEATED, EXERCISE-INDEPENDENT INCREASES IN BLOOD FLOW ON LOWER LIMB ENDOTHELIAL FUNCTION
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Exercise training improves endothelial function partially through increases in blood flow–associated shear stress. Local heat training can be used to isolate the exercise-independent effect of increased shear stress on endothelial function. Forearm heat training has been found to improve brachial artery endothelial function, however, this has never been investigated in the lower limb. PURPOSE: To examine the effect of heat training on superficial femoral artery (SFA) endothelial function in young, healthy females utilizing reactive hyperemia flow-mediated dilation (RH-FMD) and sustained stimulus FMD (SS-FMD). METHODS: Female participants (n=13, 23±2 yrs) had one leg randomized to the heat training intervention (EXP; other leg: control (CON)). The EXP leg underwent 8 weeks of heat training via immersion in 42.5°C water for five 35-minute sessions per week. At week 0, 2, 4, 6, and 8, SFA RH-FMD and SS-FMD were measured in each leg via duplex ultrasound. RH-FMD was characterized as the peak % change in diameter following release of 5 min of thigh occlusion. SS-FMD was characterized as the peak % change in diameter during 6 min of plantar flexion exercise at a target shear stress of 13 dynes/cm2. RESULTS: Week zero RH and SS-FMD were as follows: RH-FMD: CON 7.3±3.1, EXP 5.1±4.2; SS-FMD: CON 8.1±4.3, EXP 9.2±6.4. RH-FMD and SS-FMD did not change over the training period (RH: p=0.128; SS: p=0.063) or differ between EXP and CON legs (RH: p=0.685; SS: p=0.337; interaction RH: p=0.076; SS: p=0.958). Covariation for the shear stress stimulus did not alter the results. CONCLUSION: 8-weeks of leg heat training in young, healthy females did improve SFA endothelial function. These results are in contrast with previous findings that heat training improves upper limb endothelial function. The increased blood flow-associated shear stress elicited by the heating protocol may have been inadequate to elicit adaptation in the SFA. Future studies are needed to determine whether other lower limb conduit arteries or the microvasculature benefit from local, lower limb heat training.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".