Apples for Health- Runner's High May Also Protect Heart

Runner's High May Also Protect Heart

IOWA CITY, Iowa, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- The so-called "runner's high," caused by natural opioids released during exercise, may also protect against heart attacks, a University of Iowa study found.

Lead investigator Dr. Eric Dickson, head of emergency medicine in the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, showed in rats that blocking the receptors that bind morphine, endorphins and other opioids eliminates the cardiovascular benefits of exercise.

The study, published in the American Journal of Physiology's Heart and Circulatory Physiology, showed that exercise was associated with increased expression of several genes involved in opioid pathways that appear to be critical in protecting the heart.

"This is the first evidence linking the natural opioids produced during exercise to the cardioprotective effects of exercise," Dickson said in a statement. "We have known for a long time that exercise is great for the heart. This study helps us better understand why."

The researchers compared rats that exercised with rats that did not and as expected, exercised rats sustained significantly less heart damage from a heart attack than rats that did not exercise. The researchers showed that blocking opioid receptors completely eliminated these cardioprotective effects in exercising rats, suggesting that opioids are responsible for some of the cardiac benefits of exercise.
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