A neural link to explain the "muscle hypothesis" of exercise intolerance in chronic heart failure.

BACKGROUND: In chronic heart failure the cause of exercise limitation is still unclear: ergoreceptors, muscle afferents sensitive to exercise metabolites, are proposed as a neural link between muscular abnormalities and the limited exercise responses in this syndrome. METHODS: In 92 stable patients with heart failure (34 in New York Heart Association class I, 27 in class II, and 31 in class III) and 28 age-matched normal controls, we assessed exercise tolerance (maximal upright bicycle) and ergoreflex activity (2 dynamic hand grips: one control and one followed by 3 minutes of local circulatory occlusion to isolate the ergoreflex component by metabolite trapping). RESULTS: Patients, with respect to the controls, showed reduced exercise tolerance (peak VO2: 20 vs 33 mL/kg/min), increased ergoreflex effects on ventilation (9 vs 4 L/min), systolic pressure (37 vs 13 mm Hg), and leg vascular resistance (45 vs 22 units) (all P <.005); with the progression of the symptoms, a progressive increase in ergoreflex contribution to the ventilatory response to exercise was observed. The indexes of exercise limitation during arm and leg exercise (ie, peak VO 2, V/VCO2 slope) correlated highly with the ergoreflex contribution to ventilatory response during handgrip test ( r