Objective:

To review the scientific evidence on the effectiveness of different physical exercise modalities in decreasing BNP and NT-proBNP in patients with HF.

Methodology:

This systematic review was developed based on the PICOS criteria, a search for scientific articles was carried out using electronic databases, such as: “PubMed”, “Academic Search Ultimate”, “SportDiscus” and “ScienceDirect”. These databases are accessed through the “EBSCO host” platform. The search terms (Boolean phrase) or keywords were as follows: (‘‘heart failure’’) AND (“cardiac rehabilitation” OR “exercise” OR ‘‘training’’) AND (“brain natriuretic peptide” OR “atrial natriuretic peptide”) NOT (“animals” OR “rat”). The searches were carried out between january and march 2020.

Resulted:

A total of 1623 studies were reviewed, where in the end 21 qualitative articles were included to carry out this systematic literature review. A total of 1601 patients with HF were analyzed and was observed a decrease in BNP with AD between 6.7% and 50.5%. Regarding the EC, it is observed that there are no significant effects in the decrease of the BNP, since a decrease of only 1% and an increase of 67.4% are reported. In relation to the NT-proBNP, significant decreases were found between 13.6% and 71.7% with the EA and between 2.5% and 36.7% with the EC, but increases were also found in this variable.

Conclusions:

Both EA and EC generate positive effects on BNP and NT-proBNP in patients with HF, compared to patients who did not do any type of physical exercise.