High intensity resistance training causes muscle damage and increases biomarkers of acute kidney injury in healthy individuals

Abstract

PurposeHigh-intensity interval resistance training (HIIRT) is an increasingly popular exercise program that provides positive results with short sessions. This study aimed to evaluate whether an HIIRT session causes muscle and kidney damage.MethodsFifty-eight healthy volunteers (median age 24 years, 50% women) participated in this study and performed a HIIRT session. The Borg CR10 scale for pain (CR10P) and blood and urine samples were collected before (baseline) and 2 and 24 hours after the HIIRT session. Blood samples were analyzed for serum creatinine (SCr), creatine kinase (CK) and myoglobin. Urine samples were assessed for creatinine, neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin, interleukin 18, calbindin, microalbuminuria, trefoil factor-3 and β-2 microglobulin.ResultsCR10P had a significant increase at 2 and 24 hours post-workout, and CK increased significantly at 2 hours and increased further at 24 hours. Myoglobin increased significantly at 2 hours and remained elevated at 24 hours. SCr increased modestly but significantly at 24 hours only in men. Three men met the KDIGO diagnostic criteria for acute kidney injury. The urinary kidney injury biomarkers increased significantly at 2 hours and returned to the baseline values 24 hours after HIIRT.ConclusionsA single HIIRT session caused early and significant elevations in CK, myoglobin, SCr, microalbuminuria and urinary biomarkers indicative of kidney tubular injury, suggesting the occurrence of muscle and kidney damage.

Changes in Novel AKI Biomarkers after Exercise. A Systematic Review

“…Elevation of uIL-6 and uIL-8 was also found by Sugama et al after a duathlon [59]. Spada et al found an increase in uIL-18 after a HIIT session [48]. Dutheil et al found an increase in uIL-8 after a 24 h work shift and, according to the author, this elevation was related to stress [60].…”

“…In 5/29 females, uNGAL/uCr exceeded 100 ng/mgCr, the value of which is compatible with clinical AKI. In men, the increase in uNGAL and uNGAL/uCr was not statistically significant [48].…”

“…Interleukins are important mediators of the immune reaction in the innate immune system response and adaptive immunity [8]. All these cytokines are freely filtered and then reabsorbed and metabolized in the proximal tubule; therefore, tubular injury leads to an elevation in their levels in urine [5,6,8,9,48].…”

“…Semen et al found a significant uTNFα increase after a half marathon [50]. Calbindin and TTF3 were studied in one study, and both of these markers increased after HIIT training [48]. The TTF3 family is a group of small molecule polypeptides, and uTTF3 was significantly reduced following renal tubular damage [9]; therefore, the increase in uTTF3 after exercise was surprising.…”

Characterization of Hormonal, Metabolic, and Inflammatory Responses in CrossFit® Training: A Systematic Review

“…These results are consistent with those of strength training, which were shown to increase CK levels in 58 individuals after performing 4 min of high-intensity interval resistance training. The high-intensity interval resistance training session consisted of eight sets of squats performed with the fastest speed and highest number of repetitions achievable for 20 s, with 10 s of rest between sets (Spada et al, 2018 ). Moreover, it seems that CK decreases after 72 h (Tibana et al, 2019a ), for which we speculate that after 3 successive days of competition, athletes adapt to high-intensity stimuli.…”