Effect of Exercise Training on Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor and Its Receptor Gene Expression in Cardiac Tissue of Type 2 Diabetic Rats

Type 2 diabetes is one of the effective and inhibiting factors in controlling blood glucose and vascular disorders. The aim of this study was to investigate the changes in the gene expression of vascular endothelial growth factor and its type 1 receptor in cardiac tissue of type 2 diabetic rats following three different training methods.

In this study, 60 rats were randomly divided into 5 equal groups: healthy control, diabetic control, and diabetic groups with endurance, resistance, and combined exercise training. Type 2 diabetes mellitus was induced by intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin and exercises were performed 5 sessions per week for 8 weeks. Evaluation of the levels of gene expression of vascular endothelial growth factor and its receptor 1 was performed by RT-qPCR.
Findings: The results showed a significant reduction in the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor in diabetic control, endurance training and resistance training groups, as well as a significant increase in expression of its receptor in diabetic control group and all training groups compared to healthy control group (p

The findings suggest that different training exercises are effective in improving angiogenesis, but combined exercises have a certain superiority compared to other exercises.