Effet de l’entraînement physique et sportif sur le rythme circadien de la température et le rythme veille–sommeil chez la personne âgée

Abstract

Aim. – Access the relations between physical fitness and body temperature rhythm and sleep-activity rhythm with ageing. Materials and methods. – Twenty-one subjects, men and women, athletics or sedentary, aged 64.7 ± 5.2 years, were distributed in 3 groups. The first group (E, n = 8), sedentary subjects, had to train during 4 months with a physical aerobic training program. The second group (CE, n = 6), athletics subjects, had to train as usual. The last group (AE, n = 7), athletics subjects, stopped their physical program training during the winter period as they usually do every year. At the beginning (t 0) and at the end (t 4) of the experimental protocol, the 3 groups performed a maximal graded cycling test ( V ̇ O 2 max ) to determine their physical fitness. Subsequently, during 3 days, parameters of body temperature rhythm and sleep/activity rhythm were recorded. Results and conclusion. – that subjects of the group (E) improve their physical fitness ( V ̇ O 2 max increase). In parallel the amplitude of circadian body temperature rhythm were enhanced without alteration of the sleep/activity rhythm between the pre-test and the post-test. These results showed that the improvement on circadian body temperature rhythms depends on the modification of endogenous body clock that controlled the synchronisation of the endogenous rhythms mechanisms and on the physical program training effects. In addition, results of the other groups show the necessity of conserving a minimal physical training level to keep the characteristics, structure and a regularity in the fluctuation of the biologic rhythm of body temperature.