Introduction
death, Tan, stenosis, PAD
PERIPHERAL ARTERIAL DISEASE, CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE, PAD, PERIPHERAL ARTERIAL DISEASE, STENOSIS
Cardiovascular diseases are some the most common causes of death (Heil et al. Peripheral arterial disease, inter alia, impairs lower limb performance (Dopheide et al. Supervised exercise therapies aim to improve quality of life as well as lower limb symptoms and performance. Therapy options in non-clinical settings include home-based walking and resistance exercises (Guidon and McGee The exact cellular and molecular mechanisms leading to these performance improvements have not yet been unravelled (Düppers et al. Long-term effects on increased blood flow may be mostly attributed to arteriogenesis, in particular the formation of collateral blood vessels to bypass a stenosis or occlusion (Tan et al. The sketched mechanistic is mainly seen in healthy people. In these individuals’, cardiovascular adaptions improve with higher exercise intensity. However, it is currently unclear whether these adaptions occur in patients with PAD. Although initially seen as by-product of anaerobic metabolism or fuel for specific muscle cells, lactate is currently discussed as transmitter or signaling molecule for processes including angiogenesis (Porporato et al. The background of, inter alia, the relevance of investigating is the role of miRNA in the therapy of peripheral arterial disease. Based on recent evidence, miRNAs could be developed as potential circulating biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of PAD (Bresler et al. The aim of the present study was to investigate the influence of walking exercise itself and different exercise intensities on cardiometabolic outcomes and the expression of miRNAs which are related to short term vascular response and arteriogenesis in patients with peripheral arterial disease. We hypothesise that vigorous-intensity training leads to a higher metabolic and to a different profile of circulating miRNAs compared to moderate-intensity training.