Preventive Effects of Forced and Voluntary Aerobic Exercises and Nanocurcumin Supplementation on Aortic Fibrosis Following Chronic Induction of Adriamycin in Aging Rats

Despite the effectiveness of Adriamycin in the treatment of various types of cancer, its cardiovascular complications have become challenging, especially in the elderly. The aim of this study was to investigate the preventive effects of forced and voluntary aerobic exercise and nanocurcumin supplementation on aortic fibrosis following chronic induction of adriamycin in aging rats.

Seventy 12-week-old male Wistar rats were randomly divided into 10 experimental and control groups. Aging was induced by digalactose (100 mg/kg). Forced aerobic training groups ran five sessions weekly for six weeks on a treadmill (25-54 minutes/day, slope 0%, speed 15-20 meters/minute). Voluntary exercise groups had access to a running wheel for six weeks. In the last two weeks, 15 days of subcutaneous injection (1 mg/kg/day) of adriamycin/saline and 14 days of nanocurcumin induction (100 mg/kg/day) by gavage were performed. Forty-eight hours after the last session, the rats were sacrificed and the ascending aorta was removed. Mallory's trichrome staining was performed for histological analysis. The thickness of the collagen and elastin area was measured.

There was no significant difference in elastin thickness of aortic tissue between different groups (p=0.197). Collagen thickness significantly due to voluntary-exercise+Adriamycin (p=0.003), forced-exercise+Adriamycin (p<0.001), nanocurcumin+Adriamycin (p<0.001), voluntary-exercise+nanocurcumin+Adriamycin (p<0.001), and forced-exercise+nanocurcumin+Adriamycin (p<0.001) was significantly lower than the Adriamycin group.  Also, collagen/elastin thickness ratio due to voluntary-exercise+Adriamycin (p=0.003), forced-exercise+Adriamycin (p=0.001), nanocurcumin+Adriamycin (p=0.002), voluntary-exercise+nanocurcumin+Adriamycin (p=0.015), and forced-exercise+nanocurcumin+Adriamycin (p<0.001) was less than Adriamycin group.

All the approaches used in the present study may be valuable treatments to neutralize the increase in aortic fibrosis caused by Adriamycin, which is partly due to the positive effects of aerobic exercise and also the beneficial effect of nanocurcumin on the cardiovascular system.