Clinical Trial: Interval Training and Hormones in Chronic Heart Failure

Study Status: Recruiting
Recruit Status: Unknown status
Study Type: Interventional

Official Title: Effects of Interval Training on Hormonal Pathways in Chronic Heart Failure

Brief Summary: The investigators aim at investigating whether 24-week high intensity interval training might exert beneficial effects by modulating neurohormonal axis in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF). Furthermore, the effect of detraining on neurohormonal axis in CHF patients will be evaluated.

Detailed Summary:

According to European Society of Cardiology the prevalence of Heart Failure (HF) is between 2 and 3% in general population and increases with age, so the prevalence in 70- to 80-years-old people is between 10 and 20%. HF is the cause of 5% of acute hospital admissions, is present in 10% of patients in hospital beds, and accounts for high national expenditure on health, mostly due to the cost of hospital admissions. Although some patients can live for many years and the great improvement of medical therapy during last decades, overall 50% of patients are dead at 4 years.

Despite different hypothesis that explain the underlying physiopathology of heart failure have been proposed over time, no single paradigm for heart failure was established definitively. One logical explanation of the inability to define the syndrome of heart failure in precise mechanistic model is that the clinical syndrome of heart failure almost certainly represents the summation of multiple anatomic, functional, and biological alterations that interact together in a complex way. Thus, it is not surprising that investigators have used a variety of complex model in an attempt to describe the syndrome of heart failure. Nowadays, the most accepted hypothesis explaining HF physiopathology and its progression is the "neurohormonal model". According to this paradigm, heart failure progresses as a result of the overexpression of biologically active molecules that exert toxic effects on the heart and circulation. A variety of molecules including norepinephrine, angiotensin II, endothelin, aldosterone, and tumor necrosis factor have been implicated as some of the factors that contribute to disease progression in the failing heart.

Despite the effectiveness of the neurohormonal model to explain disease progression and the many insights that it provided f
Sponsor: Federico II University

Current Primary Outcome: peak exercise oxygen consumption (VO2peak) [ Time Frame: 24 weeks ]

cardiopulmonary functional capacity


Original Primary Outcome: Same as current

Current Secondary Outcome:

  • growth hormone (GH) - insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) [ Time Frame: 24-week ]
    GH/IGF-1 axis balance
  • brain natriuretic peptide [ Time Frame: 24-week ]
    BNP assay


Original Secondary Outcome: Same as current

Information By: Federico II University

Dates:
Date Received: December 17, 2014
Date Started: January 2015
Date Completion: January 2016
Last Updated: March 8, 2015
Last Verified: March 2015