Effects of aerobic exercise training on cardiac and systemic renin- angiotensin system in obese rats

Author(s)

Diego Lopes Mendes Barretti

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Medicina (FM/SBD)
• Defense date: 2010-09-23

Examining board members

Edilamar Menezes de Oliveira; Zuleica Bruno Fortes; João Bosco Pesquero

• Advisor: Edilamar Menezes de Oliveira

Abstract

Introduction: Obesity and cardiac renin angiotensin system hyperactivity are profoundly involved in cardiovascular diseases. On the other hand, aerobic exercise training can prevent obesity and reduce cardiac renin angiotensin system components in some models of cardiac pathology. Therefore, our hypotheses was to investigate if obesity and its association with aerobic exercise training alters the systemic and cardiac renin angiotensin system components in an obese Zucker rat strain. Methods: The rats were divided in the follow groups: Lean group (LG); lean group plus aerobic exercise training (LGTR); obese group (OG) and obese group plus aerobic exercise training (OGTR). Aerobic exercise training protocol consisted of 10 weeks swimming sessions of 60 min, 5 days/week. At the end of the protocol training we evaluated heart rate, systolic blood pressure, cardiac hypertrophy and function, local and system component of renin angiotensin system. We also measured systemic glucose, triglycerides and total cholesterol such as their fractions: low density lipoprotein and high density lipoprotein. Results: Both obese groups showed a significant augment in body weight when compared with lean groups, however, the obese trained group had less weight gain (-59%) than obese untrained group. These alterations were accompanied by (-12%) less resting heart rate, (-57%) triglycerides, (-61%) low density lipoprotein and augmented (+42%) high density lipoprotein in the obese group when compared with untrained obese group. Moreover, our results showed that exercise training reduced the increased cardiac mass (-13%), cardiac angiotensin converting enzyme activity (-27%) and expression (-63%), angiotensin II (-44%), and type 2 angiotensin II receptor (-35%), and improve the loss of diastolic function caused by obesity. Furthermore, exercise augmented cardiac ACE2 in both training groups. Conclusion: Our results showed that the aerobic exercise training improved the metabolic and cardiac alterations caused by obesity (AU)