We read with interest the ‘Letter to Editor’ by Drs Mohan and Das1 on our recently published paper2 in this journal.

As the two authors are aware, exercise-based research involving patients with spinal cord injury is very difficult. As the title of the paper suggested, the patients in whom the research was conducted had spinal cord injury. In its chronic form, patients could suffer from various other complications but the participating patients were free of any other complication apart from that related to the injury, as stated in the paper. Specifically, we recruited patients who were free of any inflammatory condition and physically in good condition to complete the 2 h exercise.

With regard to the Borg score, Drs Mohan and Das1 are correct in stating the problem related to the different score used at present, making citation of the range and any modification of the scoring system necessary in any report of related research.

Drs Mohan and Das1 are also correct regarding the exercise duration. The subjects had to pause only a few minutes before the termination of the exercise to allow blood sampling. It is possible that the short pause in the exercise could have affected the results. However, this needs to be confirmed in another control study.

As stated above, exercise-based research involving patients with spinal cord injury is very difficult and recruitment of large number of subjects is desirable but often difficult. There is no doubt that the point raised by the authors1 is well taken and we call for other studies that include larger samples to confirm our findings.

Although we welcome the views of others on our work, we also encourage the scientific community, including Drs Mohan and Das, to engage in basic research that involves patients with spinal cord injury. There is no doubt a need for a better understanding of the normal ‘physiology’ of various systems in otherwise healthy subjects with spinal cord injury.