Diastolic dysfunction substantially reduces a person’s ability to exercise, a new study shows. Unlike other factors that may be associated with reduced exercise capacity, this abnormal heart function may be a preventable factor associated with the development of exercise intolerance.

 

The findings may help doctors in their effort to find solutions to halt the progressive decline in exercise capacity that comes with age.

For the study, the researchers assessed 2867 patients undergoing exercise echocardiography with routine measurements of left ventricular systolic and diastolic dysfunction by two-dimensional and Doppler techniques. They conducted analyses to determine the correlation between diastolic dysfunction and exercise capacity.

 

The cross-sectional study, published in the Jan.21 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, has revealed that any level of resting diastolic dysfunction, from moderate-to-severe to mild, substantially lowers the capacity to exercise. Even mild abnormalities of diastolic function were related to a lower exercise capacity. The negative effects of this dysfunction became greater in older patients.

 

“Abnormalities in the relaxation function of the heart, or diastolic function, became more pronounced with aging. And these, the impact of these on the exercise capacity was more pronounced with aging,” the researchers said.

Diastolic dysfunction is characterized by elevated diastolic pressure in the left ventricle; it refers to an abnormality in the heart’s filling during diastole, the phase of the cardiac cycle when the ventricle is not contracting but is filling with blood, either from the body or from the lungs.