The effect of moderate intensity running training on reproductive system alteration induced by acetyl salicylic acid (Aspirin) in adult Wistar rats

Acetyl salicylic acid (ASA) or Aspirin is one of the most widely used drugs in the world; one of its side effects is the male reproductive system alteration. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of moderate intensity aerobic exercise on ASA-induced reproductive system alteration in rats.

In two stages, fifteen rats (N=15) were randomly divided into control (C, n=5), non-treatment (NT, n=5) and aerobic-treatment (AT, n=5) groups; the AT and NT groups used aspirin 12.5 mg/kg-daily/five weeks. The AT group ran at moderate intensity on a rodent-treadmill/four weeks, five sessions a week. Groups C and NT did not receive any intervention. Serum testosterone level, spermatogenesis indices and sperm parameters of rats were evaluated and the data were analyzed by one-way variance and Tukey post-hoc-test at alpha level 0.05 by SPSS.

Data statistical analysis showed that there was a significant difference between the groups in terms of serum testosterone level (P=0.02), sperm quantity (P=0.0001), viability (P=0.001), maturity (P=0.0001), sperm DNA fracture (P=0.002), TDI, SI and RI indices, tubule diameter (P=0.0001), tubular epithelium thickness (P=0.0001) and number of Leydig cells (P=0.003), but there was no significant difference between the groups in terms of sperm motility (P=0.07). Tukey post-hoc-test showed that these differences were between NT and AT groups, but no significant difference was observed between C and AT.

It can be concluded that four-week moderate exercise helps accelerate the reproductive conditions recovery to just before taking acetyl salicylic acid (ASA) or Aspirin.