Research

Mixed

In asymptomatic individuals with Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) and obesity, alternative cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) indices—specifically oxygen uptake recovery, heart rate recovery, and oxygen uptake at the ventilatory threshold—are significantly impaired compared to healthy controls and are independently associated with markers of subclinical cardiovascular dysfunction (aortic stiffness, diastolic dysfunction, and microvascular impairment).

If you have Type 2 Diabetes and are overweight, standard fitness tests might not tell the whole story about your heart health. Specific recovery metrics after exercise (how fast your oxygen use and heart rate drop) and your ventilatory threshold are better indicators of early heart stress. These markers can help identify who is at risk for developing heart failure before symptoms appear, allowing for earlier lifestyle or medical intervention.

ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
All CPET outcomes were worse in those with T2D vs. the controls. Three CPET outcomes were associated with markers of cardiovascular structure and function: VO2 recovery with mean aortic distensibility... heart rate recovery with early filling velocity... left ventricular mass/volume ratio... and mean aortic distensibility... and VO2 at the ventilatory threshold with myocardial perfusion reserve.
Grace W. M. Walters et al. · Journal of Functional Morphology and Kinesiology · 2025

Why this rating

The study is a cross-sectional observational analysis with a relatively small sample size (84 T2D, 36 controls) and explicitly states that causality cannot be inferred.

Source

Interrelationship Between Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing Indices and Markers of Subclinical Cardiovascular Dysfunction in Those with Type 2 Diabetes—An Observational Cross-Sectional Analysis

Grace W. M. Walters et al. · Journal of Functional Morphology and Kinesiology · 2025

DOI 10.3390/jfmk10040371

cross_sectional · n=120Cited 1×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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