Fitness and vascular health in young Fontan patients

What is it about?

People who has underwent the Fontan procedure (read more about Fontan: https://heart.bmj.com/content/91/6/839) have lower fitness levels and they participate in exercise training less often than healthy people. Low fitness level and physically inactive lifestyle may have negative impact on vascular health. Therefore, we studied for the first time the link between fitness and arterial stiffness in Fontan patients and healthy controls.

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Why is it important?

Arterial stiffening is an important cause of the development of cardiovascular diseases and the process begins in early childhood. Therefore, it is important to detect the development of arterial stiffening at an early stage commence intervention and prevent cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. We found that young Fontan patients had the arterial stiffness of healthy people who are twice as old. Children and young adults with a Fontan circulation also had lower cardiorespiratory fitness and less sport participation. Arterial stiffness is inversely associated with cardiorespiratory fitness and exercise training might be an intervention to improve vascular health in this population.

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