Increase in Endogenous Fibrinolysis and Platelet Activity during Exercise in Young Volunteers

Physicians at the Medical Clinic at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz Germany compared data on 6 18-35 year old healthy women who took low-dose estrogen oral contraceptives (OCs) with data on 10 healthy women of same age who did not take OCs and with data on 12 18-35 year old males to examine gender differences of the coagulation system endogenous fibrinolytic activity and platelet aggregation under normal conditions and immediately after spiroergometric exercise beyond the anaerobic threshold. This type of exercise considerably boosted tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) in both men and women (1.6-5.5 IU/ml and 1.8-5.3 IU/ml respectively; p < .005). The increase was not as high in…