Deciphering Blood Flow Restriction Training to Aid Lipid Lowering in Obese College Students through Untargeted Metabolomics

Abstract

(1) Objective: The aim of this study was to observe the lipid-lowering effects of blood flow restriction training (BFR) combined with moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT) in obese college students by observing lipid-lowering hormones and untargeted metabolomics. (2) Methods: In this study, 14 obese college students were convened into three groups—MICT, MICT+BFR, and high-intensity interval training (HIIT)—for a crossover experiment. Blood was drawn before and after exercise for the analysis of lipolytic agents and untargeted metabolomics. The study used a paired t-test and ANOVA for statistical analyses. (3) Results: The lipolytic agent results showed that MICT+BFR was superior to the other two groups in terms of two agents (p = 0.000 and p = 0.003), namely, GH and IL-6 (difference between before and after testing: 10,986.51 ± 5601.84 and 2.42 ± 2.49, respectively), and HIIT was superior to the other two groups in terms of one agent (p = 0.000), i.e., EPI (22.81 ± 16.12). No advantage was observed for MICT. The metabolomics results showed that, compared to MICT, MICT+BFR was associated with the upregulated expression of xanthine, succinate, lactate, N-lactoylphenylalanine, citrate, ureido acid, and myristic acid after exercise, with the possibility of the involvement of the citric acid cycle, alanine, aspartic acid, glutamate metabolism, butyric acid metabolism, and the histidylate metabolism pathway. (4) Conclusions: The superior lipid-lowering effect of MICT+BFR over MICT in a group of obese college students may be due to the stronger activation of GH and IL-6 agents, with the citric acid cycle and alanine, aspartate, and glutamate metabolic pathways being associated with this type of exercise.