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Stereology of myocardial hypertrophy induced by physical exercise

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Summary

Twenty young female Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly assigned to 2 groups. Ten animals served as sedentary controls, the 10 experimental animals were subjected to a training program with gradually increasing intensity of 18 weeks duration on a motor-driven treadmill. The rats were fixed by retrograde vascular perfusion via the abdominal aorta under anesthesia. Two transverse and 2 longitudinal sections per animal were selected at random from the left ventricular papillary muscles for light and electron microscopic stereological investigation. Length density and surface density of myocardial cells and capillaries were estimated with correction for partial anisotropy and curvature by means of the mathematical model of a Dimroth Watson orientation distribution. Left and right ventricular weight increased by 20% in the exercise group (P<0.001), whereas body weight remained unchanged. Physical training led to a significant increase of heart muscle fiber cross-sectional area by 17% (P<0.01). The ultrastructural volumetric composition of the myocardial cell cytoplasm by myofibrils, mitochondria, and sarcoplasmic matrix remained unchanged. Volume density, length density and surface density of capillaries, as well as capillary cross-sectional area and capillary anisotropy parameters were not significantly altered by training. From the data one concludes an increase of the 3-dimensional capillary-fiber ratio by 19% (P<0.001). Thus physical training induces mild absolute biventricular cardiac hypertrophy in young female rats, in which capillary proliferation compensates for the increase of mean oxygen diffusion distance resulting from fiber thickening, by supplying each unit of fiber length by more units of capillary length.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pathologisches Institut der Universität, Im Neuenheimer Feld 220/221, D-6900, Heidelberg, Germany

    Torsten Mattfeldt, Karl-Ludwig Krämer, Reinhard Zeitz & Gerhard Mall

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  1. Torsten Mattfeldt
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  2. Karl-Ludwig Krämer
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  3. Reinhard Zeitz
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  4. Gerhard Mall
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Mattfeldt, T., Krämer, KL., Zeitz, R. et al. Stereology of myocardial hypertrophy induced by physical exercise. Vichows Archiv A Pathol Anat 409, 473–484 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00705418

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