Does chronic smoking affect induced-exercise catecholamine release?

Introduction and objectives: This study was performed to investigate the acute effect of the submaximal aerobic exercise upon epinephrine and nor-epinephrine levels in chronic smokers and non-smoker. The study was carried out upon 10 regular (15 >= cigarettes/day) smoker untrained male along five years and 10 never smoker untrained male. Methods: Subjects performed an endurance exercise that continues 40 minutes at 70% maximal heart rate. There were 15cc venous blood samples extracted from the forearm pre-exercise (PRE), post-exercise (POST), post-exercise 2 hours (2h), post-exercise 24 hours (24h) to measure of epinephrine and nor-epinephrine levels. Results: The plasma level of each hormone increased after exercise and the tendency of rise was similar between groups as it seen in which 55,6% and 54,68% for epinephrine and 27,1% and 35,7% for norepinephrine. In this respect no group-time relationship has been found (p>0,05). But in between-group analyses, basal and after exercise levels were different (p<0,05). Discussion and conclusion: The study revealed the fact that, smokers have higher plasma levels of epinephrine and norepinephrine before and after exercise. The results demonstrate that long-term smoking induces elevate baseline and post-aerobic submaximal exercise plasma epinephrine and nor-epinephrine levels. The sympatho-adrenal activity appears to be disrupt with long-term smoking which effect the glycolytic and fat metabolism during exercise.