Effect of Concomitant Use of Curcumin during Six Weeks of Aerobic Exercise on Antioxidant Indices of Liver Tissue in Mice with Induced Breast Cancer in the Doxorubicin Treatment Phase

Chemotherapy for the treatment of breast cancer has many side effects on the liver tissue. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of aerobic exercise and curcumin on oxidative stress indices in the liver of mice with cancer treated with doxorubicin.

The present study is basic and experimental. Thirty-six female BALB/c mice weighing 20 ± 2 g were randomly divided into 6 groups: healthy, patient, patient + treatment (doxorubicin), patient + treatment + training, patient + treatment + supplement, and patient + treatment + supplement + aerobic exercise. Cancer was induced by the injection of the 4T1 cell line. Doxorubicin was injected subcutaneously on days 1, 7, 14, 21, and 28, and curcumin was given orally. Aerobic exercise consisted of 30 minutes of running at an intensity of 40%-60% of the maximum speed, 5 days a week, for 6 weeks. The training started at 14 m/min in the first week and finally reached 18 m/min. Two-way analysis of variance was used to investigate the interactive effect of exercise and supplementation on the expression of target genes.

The interactive effect of curcumin and aerobic exercise on the expression of GSH (P = 0.054), SOD (P = 0.145), and CAT (P = 1.000) genes and concentration of MDA (P = 0.087) was not statistically significant.

It seems that aerobic exercise with curcumin may not have protective effects on the liver against oxidative stress caused by the drug; however, more studies are needed in this area.