Acute and chronic responses to exercise in patients with HFpEF

This project aims to advance our understanding of HFpEF by identifying immune-metabolic signatures associated with changes in cardiorespiratory fitness. A central focus is the investigation of immune-metabolic responses to acute exercise in patients with HFpEF. Exercise testing provides a unique physiological stressor to uncover dynamic metabolic and inflammatory responses, offering insights that resting measurements alone cannot capture. By studying these responses, we aim to identify novel biomarkers that reflect cardiovascular risk and inform targeted therapeutic strategies. The project will leverage biological samples and data from both single center pilot and multi-center large-scale intervention studies. Two pilot studies, PERMIT and Response2Ex, include three measurement time points and incorporate exercise-induced phenotyping. These are complemented by two larger cohorts, EX-DHF and OptimEX, which also feature three time points but lack exercise-induced phenotyping. This design allows for a comprehensive analysis of acute and longitudinal immune-metabolic dynamics in patients with HFpEF.