The Effect of resistance training on serum levels of selected cardiac biomarkers of diabetic elderly men

  age is an  important risk factor for type 2 diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of resistance training on serum levels of selected cardiac biomarkers including hs-CTnI and GDF-15 in elderly diabetic men.

This research was an experimental study with a pretest-posttest design. For this purpose, 24 people were selected from among diabetic elderly men (Age: 71.7±6.6 years, weight: 74.1±13.5 kg, body mass index: 26.7±4.4 kg/m2) as research subjects and randomly divided into 2 groups of resistance training (12 people) and control (12 people). The training protocol was designed for eight weeks with three sessions per week, eight movements and each movement with 70% of one maximum repetition for the training group. The control group was also monitored in Kahrizak nursing home without any exercise to compare with the experimental group and to evaluate the effect of eight-week pre-test and post-test blood sampling time. Chemiluminescence and sandwich ELISA were used to measure serum levels of hs-CTnI and GDF-15, respectively. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 24 software.

Serum hs-CTnI levels decreased significantly after eight weeks of resistance training (p=0.001). While, Serum GDF-15 levels did not show significant changes (p=0.71).

Resistance training leads to different outcomes of cardiac biomarkers in elderly diabetic men. However, our data confirm that resistance training may improve cardiac risk factors in elderly diabetic men.