NCT05409404

The Effects of 8 Weeks Post Exercise Hot Water Immersion on Vascular and Cardiometabolic Health in Physically Inactive Middle-aged Adults

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 24 (actual)
• Sponsor: Coventry University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 45 Years – 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

This research project aims to determine whether post exercise hot water immersion can improve vascular and cardiometabolic health to a greater extent than post exercise thermoneutral water immersion in healthy middle-aged adults. The study will take place over an 8 week period where participants will do a combination of aerobic exercise and water immersion 3 times per week. The study will be a randomised controlled trial comparing 8-weeks of post exercise hot water immersion (EX+HWI) to post exercise thermoneutral water immersion (EX+TNWI).

Detailed description

The exercise component of each intervention will be 30 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise consisting of 10 minutes cycling, jogging and rowing, three times per week. Exercise intensity will be maintained at a heart rate equivalent of 65% of maximal heart rate. All exercise sessions will take the form of supervised group exercise sessions (\<4 participants) at Coventry University. After 30 minutes of exercise, participants will either complete 30 minutes of whole-body hot water immersion at 40°C or thermoneutral immersion at 34°C in the control condition (similar protocols are known to be well tolerated in older adults) (Akerman et al. 2019; Brunt et al. 2016). In order to ensure progression, exercise intensity will be increase to 75% of maximal heart rate according to the maximal exercise test at 4 weeks. Assessment sessions will take place before session 1 and \>48hrs after session 12 and 24. Prior to arriving at the lab participants will complete an overnight fast. Participants will also refrain from consuming alcoholic and caffeinated beverages, nitrate high sources and any form of strenuous exercise in the 24hr time period prior to testing. All testing laboratory visits will be completed in the morning and where possible at the same time of day to help standardise for any potential variations that the circadian rhythm may have on the measured variables. Assessments will be completed over two days. The outcome measures for this study comprise a range of physiological psychological measures which are known to inform the risk of cardiovascular disease. These measures fall into the following broad categories 1) vascular health; 2) cardiometabolic and inflammatory blood markers; 3) maximal exercise test and 4) cardiovascular disease risk prediction. In addition, measures of intervention acceptability and basic physiological heat acclimation measures will also be assessed.

Conditions

• Physical Inactivity
• Aging

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Aerobic exercise + hot water immersion	Light to moderate intensity aerobic exercise for 30 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of hot water immersion at 40°C.
OTHER	Aerobic exercise + thermoneutral water immersion	Light to moderate intensity aerobic exercise for 30 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of thermoneutral water immersion at 34°C.

Timeline

• Start date: 2023-01-13
• Primary completion: 2023-08-25
• Completion: 2023-08-25
• First posted: 2022-06-08
• Last updated: 2023-10-24

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United Kingdom