Cardiorespiratory responses, nitric oxide production and inflammatory factors in patients with myocardial infarction after rehabilitation

Abstract There is evidence that myocardial infarction (MI) patients have an inflammatory process that includes skeletal muscles, and exercise has been reported to reduce some inflammatory markers. The aim of this work was to study NO and some inflammatory markers in quadriceps muscle of MI patients before and after cardiac rehabilitation. Muscle biopsy was obtained in 17 MI patients before and after CR and only once in 11 healthy subjects . Several cardiorespiratory and metabolic parameters were evaluated and skeletal muscle levels of nitric oxide synthases, nitrate, nitrite, nitrotyrosine, tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β), interleukin- 6 (IL-6) and CD154. After CR there was an increase in maximal oxygen consumption (21.2 ± 1.4 vs 25.7 ± 2.5 mL/kg/min, P  2 , P  2 , P = 0.02), and nitrate (18.6 ± 3.04 vs 20.7 ± 2.0 ng/mg, P