Home-based Exercise in Renal Transplant Recipients

Although patients who have received a kidney transplant have better health than patients on dialysis, heart problems are still the commonest cause of death for kidney transplant recipients. This is because diseases like high blood pressure and diabetes are more common in patients with kidney transplants as well as factors related to having kidney disease itself and the medications transplant recipients have to take to stop them rejecting their transplanted kidney. Exercise is known to help with heart disease in lots of conditions and improves many of the risk factors known to cause heart disease in kidney transplant recipients. This study will investigate whether an individualised, home-based, exercise program improves heart disease in kidney transplant recipients. The study is a randomised controlled trial, with half the patients completing the 12 week exercise programme and the other half continuing with their normal care. The investigators will use detailed MRI scans to assess patient's hearts and blood vessels at the start and end of the study. The investigators will also assess changes in physical function, exercise capacity, blood markers of heart disease, changes in body type and quality of life measures assessed with questionnaires.