Research

Hormonal

Acute high-intensity cycling exercise (70% VO2max for 60 minutes) causes a transient decrease in serum levels of the myokine PEDF, which normalizes within 120 minutes post-exercise, despite increased local secretion from contracting muscle cells.

If you perform 60 minutes of cycling at 70% of your maximum aerobic capacity, expect your blood levels of the protein PEDF to drop temporarily (up to 2 hours post-workout). This does not mean the exercise is ineffective; rather, it reflects complex distribution dynamics where the protein may be moving into tissues. Do not use a single post-workout blood test of PEDF to judge the efficacy of your training session.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
measurement of PEDF serum level after 60 min cycling revealed a decrease 30 min post exercise (Fig. 3F) that was normalized after 120 min post exercise.
Silja Raschke et al. · PLoS ONE · 2013

Why this rating

Validated in a small human cohort (n=8) with clear statistical significance (p<0.05) and confirmed by in vitro myotube models.

Source

Identification and Validation of Novel Contraction-Regulated Myokines Released from Primary Human Skeletal Muscle Cells

Silja Raschke et al. · PLoS ONE · 2013

DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0062008

mechanism_only · n=13Cited 197×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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