scholarly journals Treadmill Exercise Training Ameliorates Functional and Structural Age-Associated Kidney Changes in Male Albino Rats

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Heba R. Salem ◽  
Manar A. Faried

Aging is a biological process that impacts multiple organs. Unfortunately, kidney aging affects the quality of life with high mortality rate. So, searching for innovative nonpharmacological modality improving age-associated kidney deterioration is important. This study aimed to throw more light on the beneficial effect of treadmill exercise on the aged kidney. Thirty male albino rats were divided into three groups: young (3-4 months old), sedentary aged (23-24 months old), and exercised aged (23-24 months old, practiced moderate-intensity treadmill exercise 5 days/week for 8 weeks). The results showed marked structural alterations in the aged kidney with concomitant impairment of kidney functions and increase in arterial blood pressure with no significant difference in kidney weight. Also, it revealed that treadmill exercise alleviated theses effects in exercised aged group with reduction of urea and cystatin C. Exercise training significantly decreased glomerulosclerosis index, tubular injury score, and % area of collagen deposition. Treadmill exercise exerted its beneficial role via a significant reduction of C-reactive protein and malondialdehyde and increase in total antioxidant capacity. In addition, exercise training significantly decreased desmin immunoreaction and increased aquaporin-3, vascular endothelial growth factor, and beclin-1 in the aged kidney. This study clarified that treadmill exercise exerted its effects via antioxidant and anti-inflammatory mechanisms, podocyte protection, improving aquaporin-3 and vascular endothelial growth factor expression, and inducing autophagy in the aged kidney. This work provided a new insight into the promising role of aerobic exercise to ameliorate age-associated kidney damage.

2010 ◽  
Vol 299 (4) ◽  
pp. R1059-R1067 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Mark Olfert ◽  
Richard A. Howlett ◽  
Peter D. Wagner ◽  
Ellen C. Breen

We have previously shown, using a Cre-LoxP strategy, that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is required for the development and maintenance of skeletal muscle capillarity in sedentary adult mice. To determine whether VEGF expression is required for skeletal muscle capillary adaptation to exercise training, gastrocnemius muscle capillarity was measured in myocyte-specific VEGF gene-deleted (mVEGF−/−) and wild-type (WT) littermate mice following 6 wk of treadmill running (1 h/day, 5 days/wk) at the same running speed. The effect of training on metabolic enzyme activity levels and whole body running performance was also evaluated in mVEGF−/− and WT mice. Posttraining capillary density was significantly increased by 59% ( P < 0.05) in the deep muscle region of the gastrocnemius in WT mice but did not change in mVEGF−/− mice. Maximal running speed and time to exhaustion during submaximal running increased by 20 and 13% ( P < 0.05), respectively, in WT mice after training but were unchanged in mVEGF−/− mice. Training led to increases in skeletal muscle citrate synthase (CS) and phosphofructokinase (PFK) activities in both WT and mVEGF−/− mice ( P < 0.05), whereas β-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase (β-HAD) activity was increased only in WT mice. These data demonstrate that skeletal muscle capillary adaptation to physical training does not occur in the absence of myocyte-expressed VEGF. However, skeletal muscle metabolic adaptation to exercise training takes place independent of myocyte VEGF expression.


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 307-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meng-Shu Tsai ◽  
Min-Liang Kuo ◽  
Cheng-Chi Chang ◽  
Ying-Tai Wu

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