Acute effect of physical exercise on serum insulin-like grow factor-binding protein 2 and 3 in healthy men: role of exercise-linked growth hormone secretion

The purpose of this study was to delineate the role of GH on serum IGF-I, IGFBP-2 and -3 responses to exercise. Hormones were evaluated in six trained male subjects before (-30, -15, 0), during (+15) and after (+30, +45, + 60, +90 min) a thirty-minutes treadmill exercise (60% VO2max), both after a single administration of a somatostatin analog (i.e., octreotide, 0.1 mg sc) and after saline. The same evaluations were performed without exercise with similar treatments. The results showed that: 1) octreotide significantly inhibited the GH response to exercise, 2) exercise increased IGFBP-3 concentration (+37.4% at +90, p < 0.05), whereas no modification of IGFBP-2 and of IGF-I/ IGFBP-2 and IGFBP-3/IGFBP-2 ratios were observed, 3) octreotide amplified the IGFBP-3 increase after exercise (p < 0.01 vs. exercise, from + 30 to + 60, or octreotide alone) and, without exercise, slightly increased IGFBP-3 (+15% at +75, p < 0.05) and decreased IGF-I (-14.8% at +75, p < 0.01). We concluded that GH has a reduced role, as a stimulating factor, in the serum acute IGFBP-3 increase after exercise and that octreotide is probably able to directly amplify this response. Unfortunately, we can only speculate on the physiological pathways involved.