Effects of Acute Exercise on BDNF Levels in Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients

Background: Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a chronic, inflammatory, rheumatic disease that genetic and environmental factors play role in its pathogenesis. There may be other symptoms caused by both the inflammation and the chronic disease effect, as well as the symptoms associated with the disease, such as depression, fatigue, physical inactivity and decreased quality of life. Major depression risk was revealed 16.8% of RA patients in a meta-analysis. Depression prevalence was found 38.8% by the assessment with Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and between 14.8% and 48% by the assessment with Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. BDNF is a neurotrofic factor that may show healing, survival-promoting and protective effects on neurons in central and peripheral nervous system. Acute or chronic exercise programmes were found to increase BDNF levels in human and animal studies. Aim of this study is to investigate the variation of BDNF levels following acute exercise and potential correlation between BDNF levels and depression.

Methods: This study included 30 RA patients and 30 age and sex matched healthy controls.Patients who were aged between 18-65 years, got diagnosed according to American College of Rheumatology criteria and were being followed at Firat University Department of Rheumatology were included in the study. Also, patients who had regular exercise habits, malignancy, pregnancy, incorporation, took anti-TNF treatment, had changes of medical treatment in last 3 months, diagnosed with Fibromyalgia Syndrome and Osteoarthritis for lower extremity, had cardiac symptoms according to New York Heart Association and had dysfunction that can prevent physical activity were excluded from the study. Healthy participants who were aged 18- 65 years old and not to have exercise habits were included in this study. Participants included in the study were asked and recorded age, body mass index (BMI), smoking/ alcohol habits, duration of the disease, vocation and having another chronic disease. Next, depression levels were evaluated with Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Blood samples from all subjects were taken and centrifuged before and immediately after the exercise intervention.Aerobic exercise was performed to all participants for a single session. Maximum heart rate was calculated for each subject (220 - age) and a heart rate monitor (Polar FT 100, China) was used to follow subjects' heart rate during aerobic exercise.