The Effect of Short Term Aerobic Training on Serum Insulin and Insulin Resistance in Adult Obese Females

Obesity is associated with inflammatory process and many different diseases. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of short term aerobic training on serum resistin and insulin resistance in adult obese women.

In this quasi-experimental study, thirty untrained adult obese females matched for age 35-45 years old with body mass index (BMI) 30-36 kg/m2 were divided randomly into exercise (aerobic intervention; 6 weeks, 3 days/weekly, %55-70HRmax) and control (no training) groups. Pre and post-training of fasting blood samples were collected for measure serum resistin. Insulin resistance was calculated by HOMA-IR. Data were analyzed by the independent samples T-test.

Aerobic training resulted in significant decrease in BMI (32.1 (± 2.76) vs 31.6 (± 2.80) kg/m2, P-value: 0.023), body fat percentage (44.7 (± 4.55) vs 44 (± 4.33), P-value: 0.028) and fasting glucose (94 (± 8.9) vs 79 (± 5.8) mg/dl, P-value: 0.011) in exercise group. No changes were observed on insulin resistance (1.43 (± 1.11) vs 1.18 (± 0.57) HOMA-IR, P-value: 0.124) and serum resistin (2.20 (± 1.07) vs 1.58 (± 0.87) ng/ml P-value: 0.062) by training program. All variables remained unchanged in control subjects.

Despite improving fasting glucose, a short-term aerobic training is not associated with anti-inflammatory property for obese females. Improved glucose could be likely attributed to other changes in metabolic markers in response to exercise training and further studies are necessary to clarify possible mechanisms.