Background and objectives: Cardiac apoptosis is one of the most important cardiovascular complications of diabetes. We aimed to investigate the changes of Bax, Bcl2 and caspase 3 in cardiac tissue of diabetic rats after six weeks aerobic exercise.
Methods: Thirty two male Wistar rats were randomly divided into healthy control, diabetes control and diabetes + exercise groups. Diabetes was induced by intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin solution (55 mg/kg). Two weeks after the injection, fasting blood glucose levels were measured to confirm induction of diabetes. The exercise program was performed five days a week for six weeks. Variables were evaluated by ELISA and western blot analysis. All statistical analyses were performed in SPSS (version 22) using ANOVA and at significance of 0.05.
Results: The induction of diabetes in the control groups resulted in a significant increase in Bax, Bax/Bcl2 ratio and a significant decrease in Bcl2 levels (P=0.024). The six-week training exercise in diabetic groups significantly decreased Bax and Bax/Bcl2 ratio and significantly increased Bcl2 (P=0.018).
Conclusion: Our finding showed that diabetes could increase apoptosis in cardiac tissue. In addition, the six-week aerobic exercise can be used as a non-pharmacological strategy to reduce diabetes-related apoptosis in cardiomyocytes.