Effect of 12 Weeks Moderate Intensity Resistance Training and Green Tea Extract on Cardiac Caspase-3 Expression and Telomerase Enzyme Content in Aged Male Rats

The prevalence, incidence, and morbidity of cardiac diseases increase with aging. Cardiomyocyte apoptosis contributes to the pathogenesis of heart failure. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of 12 weeks resistance training and green tea extract on cardiac caspase 3 expressions and telomerase enzyme content in aged male rats. In this study, 20 aged male rats were randomly divided into four groups: control, exercise, supplement and exercise plus supplement. Exercise groups performed resistance exercise for 12 weeks and five days per week; meantime, the supplementary groups consumed green tea extract. Immunohistochemistry method was used to measure the expression of caspase 3 and sandwich ELISA method was used to measure the telomerase content. Data was analyzed by ANOVA and Tukey's post hoc test .The results show that caspase 3 expressions in exercise (P=0.011), supplement (P=0.001) and exercise plus supplement (P=0.000) groups was significantly lower than control group. caspase 3 expressions in exercise plus supplement group significantly lower than exercise group (P=0.004) and supplement group (P=0.031). Telomerase content in exercise (P=0.043), supplement (P=0.015) and exercise plus supplement (P=0.005) groups was significantly higher than control group. According to the results of this of this study, the combination of resistance training and green tea extract can prevent cell aging in the cardiac tissue of elderly rats with decreasing expression of Caspase-3 and increased content of telomerase enzymes in the cardiac tissue.