The effect of endurance swimming training on vascular endothelial growth factor levels in heart of neonatal rats exposed to Cadmium toxicity

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) has an important role in vascular development for growth and differentiation of organs during prenatal and postnatal periods. Therefore the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of endurance swimming of rats during pregnancy and breastfeeding periods on cardiac VEGF levels of rat pups against the exposures to cadmium during fetal and newborn period.
Pregnant Wistar rats (n=32) were divided into control, cadmium, exercise, and cadmium-exercise groups. Training protocol includes five sessions per week (three weeks during both pregnancy and infancy periods). Swimming began with 30 minutes in first session. By adding five minutes per next sessions, the time of swimming sessions increased to 60 minutes within the second week of training. The rats received 400 ppm cadmium as cadmium chloride in drinking water. Sampling of pups’ heart tissue was done 22 days after the birth. VEGF levels of heart tissue were determined using ELISA method. Statistical analysis of data was conducted by Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, one-way analysis of variance, and LSD method. A p The findings showed significant decrease in heart VEGF levels of cadmium and cadmium-exercise groups and also significant increase in heart VEGF levels of exercise group compared with the control group (p The results indicated that endurance swimming training has a beneficial effect on the protective and supportive mechanisms of immune system. However, exposure to high levels of cadmium exerts some pathological effects on VEGF. So, it prevents from the beneficial effects of endurance training on the health of the fetus and newborn.