Purpose
Endurance exercise may cause transient alterations in cardiac tissue. The number of studies evaluating the relationship between changes in heart rate variability (HRV) and cardiac biomarkers following an endurance event is limited. We hypothesized that there would be a time-dependent correlation between biomarkers of cardiac damage and the reduction in parasympathetic indices of HRV within 24 h after 60 min of running in middle-aged recreational runners.
Methods
The trained, middle-aged runners who participated in this study ran 60 min at a half-marathon pace on a treadmill. Blood samples (before and 0, 4, and 24 h after the running test) and HRV data (before and 0, 1, 4, and 24 h after the running test) were obtained.
Results
After running, cardiac biomarkers (total creatine kinase, cardiac isoform of creatine kinase, creatine kinase-index [CK-Index], cardiac troponin [cTnI]) increased significantly, and HRV measures related to parasympathetic nervous system activity decreased significantly; these measures returned to baseline levels within 24 h. Finally, there were significant correlations (all p < 0.05) between the change (4 h post-running vs. pre-running) in the CK-Index and the changes (post- vs pre-running) in time-domain and nonlinear measures of HRV (r − 0.61 to − 0.67). In addition, significant correlations (all p < 0.05) were found between the area under the cTnI curve and change (1-h post- and pre-running) in time-domain and nonlinear measures of HRV (r − 0.48 to − 0.51).
Conclusions
The correlation between HRV and cardiac biomarkers indicates that HRV analysis may be an alternative approach to determine the magnitude of cardiac stress after endurance exercises.