Luc Vanhees

KU Leuven | ku leuven · Department of Rehabilitation Sciences

Whereas exercise training, as part of multidisciplinary rehabilitation, is a key component in the management of patients with chronic coronary syndrome (CCS) and/or congestive heart failure (CHF), physicians and exercise professionals disagree among themselves on the type and characteristics of the exercise to be prescribed to these patients, and t...

Objectives: Despite all the recommendations physical activity (PA) and participation in structured PA programs remains low among the stroke survivors. Compared to high-income societies, these patients face unequal socio-economic challenges in countries with low and middle-income and in multi-ethnic populations. We therefore aimed to explore factors...

Objectives Home-based physiotherapy interventions to improve post-stroke mobility are successful in high-income countries. These programs require less resources compared to center-based programs. However, feasibility of such an intervention in a low and middle-income setting remains unknown. Therefore, the SunRISe (Stroke Rehabilitation In Suriname...

Background: The Six-Minute Walk Test (6MWT) predicts community ambulation in stroke patients. These patients frequently face several disabilities, including upper extremity dysfunction. Since upper extremity (UE) dysfunction is related to walking disability, we expect that the UE function is associated with the 6MWT. So far, no study has directly i...

The Task Force on sports cardiology and exercise in patients with cardiovascular disease of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC)

In order to be able to prescribe exercise in cardiac rehabilitation, a basic understanding of the training principles is mandatory. After discussing the general concepts of exercise prescription (FITT principles), a more detailed elaboration on the exercise modes in strength training (e.g. volume, type and intensity of contraction and difference be...

Background Home-based interventions might facilitate the lifelong uptake of a physically active lifestyle following completion of a supervised phase II exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation. Yet, data on the long-term effectiveness of home-based exercise training on physical activity and exercise capacity are scarce. Objective The purpose of the T...

Objective: Resveratrol (RV) is a polyphenol with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and cardio-protective properties. Our objective was to investigate whether acute supplementation with high doses of RV would improve flow-mediated dilation (FMD) and oxygen consumption (VO2) kinetics in older coronary artery disease (CAD) patients. Design: We employed a...

Resveratrol is a plant-derived phytoalexin with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and cardio-protective properties and may be a promising therapeutic intervention strategy in cardiovascular disease. Here, we investigated the acute direct effects of trans-resveratrol (RV), on acetylcholine (ACh)-induced and flow-mediated dilation (FMD) of isolated pres...

Different environments might influence energy expenditure (EE) from physical activity (PA) monitors. We evaluated and compared the test-retest reliability and criterion validity of the Sensewear mini (SWAmini) and Actiheart (AH) to estimate EE in two climatologically different countries, i.e. Suriname (tropical rainforest climate) and Belgium (ocea...

Regular physical activity at moderate to intense intensity provides substantial health benefits. Therefore individuals should be encouraged to increase their level of physical activity. However, acute bouts of moderate to vigorous exercise may induce cardiovascular (CV) complications, such as malignant arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death/arrest (S...

Sport and exercise have been intensely advocated as protective lifestyle measures, preventing or reducing the risk of severe health issues including cardiovascular disease. More extreme forms of sport (for instance at high altitudes) have been identified as an important way of promoting cardiovascular adaptation, but have also been associated with...

Exercise training improves peak oxygen uptake, an important predictor of mortality in coronary artery disease patients. The influence of clinical and disease characteristics on training response is not well established in coronary artery disease. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate whether baseline cardiovascular disease variables and training intensit...

Whereas exercise training is key in the management of patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk (obesity, diabetes, dyslipidaemia, hypertension), clinicians experience difficulties in how to optimally prescribe exercise in patients with different CVD risk factors. Therefore, a consensus statement for state-of-the-art exercise prescription in...

Background: Increase of exercise capacity (peak VO2) after cardiac rehabilitation improves outcome in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). Systolic and diastolic function have been associated with peak VO2, but their role towards improvement of exercise capacity remains unclear. It is unknown which exercise intensity has the most beneficia...

Background: Type D personality (high negative affectivity and social inhibition) is associated with cardiovascular events and coronary plaque severity. Whether Type D is also related to functional vasomotion abnormalities is unknown. We examined concurrent and predictive associations of Type D with endothelial dysfunction in patients with coronary...

Background: Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is an essential part of contemporary coronary heart disease management. However, patients exiting a center-based CR program have difficulty retaining its benefits. Objective: We aimed to evaluate the added benefit of a home-based CR program with telemonitoring guidance on physical fitness in patients with cor...

Objective: The role of different physical activity (PA) characteristics, i.e. domain, duration and intensity in obesity prevention still requires investigation. Furthermore, ethnicity can modify the effect of PA on body composition. Therefore, we aim to describe the association between obesity and PA characteristics across the Asian- and African-Su...

Exercise rehabilitation is highly recommended by current guidelines on prevention of cardiovascular disease, but its implementation is still poor. Many clinicians experience difficulties in prescribing exercise in the presence of different concomitant cardiovascular diseases and risk factors within the same patient. It was aimed to develop a digita...

Objective We aimed to investigate (1) the effects of aerobic interval training (AIT) and aerobic continuous training (ACT) on (sub)maximal exercise measures and its determinants including endothelial function, muscle strength and cardiac autonomic function, and (2) the relationship between exercise capacity and these determinants. Methods Two-hundr...

In this particular report, we choose to present this rather exceptional case, who had a sedentary employment but with high levels of leisure time physical activity. This patient had a first stable period of many years after the first ICD implantation. However, when the ICD device was replaced because of battery failure, the patient experienced seve...

Background:Suriname is a middle-income country with a multi-ethnic population. Urbanization and ethnicity may be associated with incidence of cerebrovascular disease, but so far this has not been documented for Suriname. The objective of this study was to examine the prevalence of stroke in the capital of Suriname, and its association with ethnicit...

Aging is a major risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease. Despite a significant reduction in the mortality and morbidity rates over the last decade, the socio-economic burden of cardiovascular disease is still substantial. Consequently, there is a considerable need for alternative strategies, such as nutraceutical supplementation,...

Despite the widespread use of nutritional supplements, insight into their potential beneficial or harmful biological effects is frequently lacking. Resveratrol (RV) is a polyphenol found in berries and grape skin and is often marketed as beneficial for vascular health. Here, we tested this assumption and hypothesised that RV enhances endothelial fu...

Background: Peak oxygen uptake is an independent predictor of mortality in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). However, patients with CAD are not always capable of reaching peak effort, and therefore submaximal gas exchange variables such as the oxygen uptake efficiency slope (OUES) have been introduced. Baseline exercise capacity as expr...

Background: Aerobic interval training (IT) seems to be superior to continuous training (CT) in improving exercise capacity (peak oxygen uptake (VO2)) in coronary artery disease (CAD) patients in some, but not in all studies. Based on theoretical calculations, these comparative studies stated that the energy expenditure (EE) of both programmes is s...

Background: Aerobic interval training (AIT) and aerobic continuous training (ACT) both improve physical fitness (peak VO2) in coronary artery disease patients. However, little is known about the long-term effects of AIT and ACT on peak VO2 and exercise adherence. Design: This study is a randomized clinical multicenter trial. Methods: In total,...

Purpose: Gas exchange variables derived from cardiopulmonary exercise tests (CPETs) need to be reliable for evaluating interventions and clinical decision making. Whereas peak oxygen uptake (VO2) has shown to be a highly reliable parameter in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), little is known about the reproducibility of these parameters...

Background: In this large multicenter trial, we aimed to assess the effect of aerobic exercise training in stable coronary artery disease (CAD) patients on cellular markers of endothelial integrity, and examine their relation with improvement of endothelial function. Methods: Two-hundred CAD patients (LVEF >40%, 90% male, mean age 58.4±9.1 years...

This study reports on the stability of social-cognitive determinants, and on associations between social-cognitive determinants to show insight in the theory of planned behavior (TPB). In all, 278 health professionals who encourage patients to become physically active completed online TPB-based surveys at baseline (Time 1 [T1]) and six months later...

To cross-validate the existing peak rate of oxygen consumption (VO2peak) prediction equations in Dutch law enforcement officers and to determine whether these prediction equations can be used to predict VO2peak for groups and in a single individual. A further objective was to report normative absolute and relative VO2peak values of a sample of law...

Intense exercise places disproportionate strain on the right ventricle (RV) which may promote pro-arrhythmic remodelling in some athletes. RV exercise imaging may enable early identification of athletes at risk of arrhythmias. Exercise imaging was performed in 17 athletes with RV ventricular arrhythmias (EA-VAs), of which eight (47%) had an implant...

Patients with repaired tetralogy of Fallot (ToF) have an increased long-term risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Risk stratification in this population is difficult. Initial evidence suggests that cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) may be helpful to risk-stratify patients with repaired ToF. We studied 875 patients after surgical re...

Physical activity (PA) plays an important role in the combat against noncommunicable diseases including cardiovascular diseases. In order to develop appropriate PA intervention programs, there is a need to evaluate PA behavior. So far, there are no published data on PA available for Suriname. Therefore, we aim to describe PA behavior among the mult...

Purpose:Alterations in endothelial progenitor cells (EPC) and endothelial microparticles (EMP) might explain training-induced improvements in endothelial function in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). We aimed to asses the differential effect of training modality (continuous versus interval training) on cellular blood markers of endotheli...

During exercise the renin-angiotensin system is stimulated. We hypothesized that the increase in serum angiotensin II (AngII) levels after exercise is dependent on exercise intensity and duration and secondly that people with the ACE-II genotype will show a higher increase in AngII serum levels. We also assumed that perfusion of upper limbs is tran...

Peak exercise capacity is an independent predictor for mortality in patients with coronary artery disease. However, sometimes cardiopulmonary exercise tests are stopped prematurely. Therefore, submaximal exercise measures such as the oxygen uptake efficiency slope have been introduced. The aim of this study was to assess the prognostic value of the...

Background Exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation increases peak oxygen uptake (peak VO2), which is an important predictor of mortality in cardiac patients. However, it remains unclear which exercise characteristics are most effective for improving peak VO2 in coronary artery disease (CAD) patients. Proof of concept papers comparing Aerobic Interval...

We conducted a literature review of telerehabilitation interventions on cardiac patients. We searched for studies evaluating some form of telerehabilitation in cardiac patients. A total of 116 publications were screened initially, of which 37 publications were eligible for further review. We assessed study strength, based on the level of evidence a...

Background: Research to assess the effect of interventions to improve the processes of shared decision making and self-management directed at health care professionals is limited. Using the protocol of Intervention Mapping, a Web-based intervention directed at health care professionals was developed to complement and optimize health services in pa...

Background: The oxygen uptake efficiency slope (OUES) has been proposed as an independent, reproducible and objective measure of cardiorespiratory function that does not require maximal exercise testing. Existing reference values have been published for healthy paediatric populations and healthy elderly. However, reference ranges and equations for...

The effect of alterations in the processing of proprioceptive signals, on postural control, has been studied using muscle vibration effects. However, reliability and agreement of muscle vibration have still to be addressed. This study aimed to assess intra- and interday reliability and agreement of vibration effects of lumbar paraspinal and triceps...

In adult patients with mild-to-moderate pulmonary valve (PV) stenosis, exercise capacity and haemodynamics have not been extensively studied, although regular exercise is recommended. Therefore, we aimed to assess exercise capacity to study the increase in PV gradient during exercise and to evaluate the impact of this increased pressure load on the...

Exercise training improves exercise capacity (peakVO2), which is closely related to long-term survival in cardiac patients. However, it remains unclear which type and intensity of exercise is most effective for improving exercise tolerance and body weight. Individual studies suggest that aerobic interval training (AIT) might increase peakVO2 more i...

Physical activity (PA), physical fitness (PF), and even a few sedentary behaviors (SB) are strongly and independently linked to improved survival rate. However, key questions remain: what are the physiological interrelationships between SB, PA, and PF? How should we differently emphasize promoting PA, increasing PF with exercise, and decreasing SB...

In many sports, maintaining balance is necessary to compete at a high level. Also, in many health problems, balance is impaired. Postural sway (PS) is often used as an indicator of upright balance control, and physical activity (PA) might enhance balance control. However, the relationship between PS and PA has never been systematically reviewed. Ou...

Introduction: Exercise training improves aerobic exercise capacity (peak VO2), which is related to long-term survival in cardiac patients. However, it remains unclear which type (mode) and volume (dose x duration) of exercise are the most effective for improving peak VO2 and other cardiovascular risk factors. Several studies suggest that Aerobic In...

Objective: In patients with Coronary Artery Disease (CAD), there is considerable intra-individual variation in peak oxygen uptake (peakVO2), Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and Flow-Mediated Dilatation (FMD), as well as in the response of these phenotypes to physical training. The aim of this study was to identify genetic variants that are associated...

Although closure of an atrial septal defect type secundum often normalizes right heart dimensions and pressures, mild tricuspid insufficiency might persist. This study aimed at (1) identification of determinants explaining the persistence of tricuspid insufficiency after atrial septal defect closure, and (2) evaluation of functional capacity of pat...

Objective Although closure of an atrial septal defect type secundum often normalizes right heart dimensions and pressures, mild tricuspid insufficiency might persist. This study aimed at (1) identifi cation of determinants explaining the persistence of tricuspid insuffi ciency after atrial septal defect closure, and (2) evaluation of functional cap...

Individuals at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis have become a major focus for research designed to explore early predictors of transition to full psychosis. Characterizing differences in neurocognitive (NC) functioning between psychosis converters (CHR-C) and non-converters (CHR-NC) might contribute to the identification of specific NC predic...

Regular physical activity induces significant health benefits and most middle-aged/senior individuals should therefore be encouraged to increase their level of physical activity. Sporting activity may be especially beneficial because it is intense enough to increase cardiovascular, muscular, and metabolic fitness, compared with everyday physical ac...

Introduction: The number of studies trying to identify genetic sequence variation related to muscular phenotypes has increased enormously. The aim of this study was to identify the role of a genetic predisposition score (GPS) based on earlier identified gene variants for different muscular endophenotypes to explain the individual differences in mu...

Background Numerous meta-analyses have investigated the effect of exercise in different populations and for single cardiovascular risk factors, but none have specifically focused on the metabolic syndrome (MetS) patients and the concomitant effect of exercise on all associated cardiovascular risk factors. Objective The aim of this article was to pe...

Patients with cardiovascular risk factors can reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease by increasing their physical activity and their physical fitness. According to the guidelines for cardiovascular risk management, health professionals should encourage their patients to engage in physical activity. In this paper, we provide insight regarding t...

Background: Patients with cardiovascular risk factors can reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease by increasing their physical activity and their physical fitness. According to the guidelines for cardiovascular risk management, health professionals should encourage their patients to engage in physical activity.

Background: Although sports participation is allowed to most adult patients with corrected tetralogy of Fallot, a reduced exercise tolerance and reduced perceived physical functioning is often present in these patients. We aimed to investigate daily physical activity in adults with tetralogy of Fallot and to investigate the underlying determinants...

Background Patients with Senning repair for complete transposition of the great arteries (d-TGA) show an impaired exercise tolerance. Our aim was to investigate changes in exercise capacity in children, adolescents and adults with Senning operation. Methods Peak oxygen uptake (peak VO2), oxygen pulse and heart rate were assessed by cardiopulmonary...

Objective: Low exercise capacity and skeletal muscle strength are important predictors of all-cause mortality in healthy as well as diseased individuals. Compared to sedentary subjects, CAD patients have a decreased oxygen uptake (peakVO2) and show accompanying increased muscle fatiguability. Despite the known importance of oxygen extraction by pe...

We aimed to investigate the effect of exercise on endothelium-dependent vasodilator function assessed simultaneously in the brachial artery and in the distal arterial bed by flow-mediated dilation and the pulse amplitude tonometry method, respectively, in coronary artery disease patients. The study included 146 patients with stable coronary artery...

Objective Low exercise capacity and skeletal muscle strength are important predictors of all-cause mortality in healthy as well as diseased individuals. Compared to sedentary subjects, CAD patients have a decreased oxygen uptake (peakVO2) and show accompanying increased muscle fatiguability. Despite the known importance of oxygen extraction by peri...

Objectives Patients who underwent corrective surgery for tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) have increased long-term risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Yet, limited information is available on how to evaluate the risk in this population. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the prognostic value of aerobic exercise capacity, along...

Patients who underwent corrective surgery for tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) have increased long-term risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Yet, limited information is available on how to evaluate the risk in this population. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the prognostic value of aerobic exercise capacity, along with other...

The beneficial effect of exercise training and exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation on symptom-free exercise capacity, cardiovascular and skeletal muscle function, quality of life, general healthy lifestyle, and reduction of depressive symptoms and psychosocial stress is nowadays well recognized. However, it remains largely obscure, which characte...