Exercise Benefits Patients with Peripheral Arterial Disease

Supervised aerobic exercise, such as treadmill walking, improves exercise tolerance in patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD) and intermittent claudication, but its value in PAD patients without intermittent claudication is unclear. In this single-center U.S. trial, 156 adults (mean age, 71) with PAD were randomized to supervised treadmill walking, lower-extremity resistance training, or neither for 6 months. Roughly 20% of participants had classic symptoms of intermittent claudication. The exercise groups participated in thrice-weekly supervised programs with increasing exercise duration and intensity. Control subjects participated in 11 nutrition information sessions.

At 6 months, mean 6-minute walk performance had improved from 3…