Effect of Eight Weeks of Resistance Training on Inflammatory Markers and Antioxidant Indices of Kidney Tissue Following Testosterone Enanthate Abuse in Male Rats

Abuse of anabolic steroids can lead to kidney tissue damage.The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of eight weeks of resistance training on inflammatory markers and antioxidant indices of kidney tissue of male rats following testosterone enanthate abuse.

In this experimental study, 24 male Wistar rats were randomly divided into three groups: 1) Control, 2) Training and 3) Training + Testosterone. Rats in groups 2 and 3 performed resistance training five sessions a week for eight weeks. Moreover, group 3 received 20 mg/kg of testosterone enanthate intramuscularly three days a week. The activity levels of Superoxide dismutase (SOD) and Glutathione peroxidase (GPx) were measured by spectrophotometric method and the gene expression of Interleukin-6 (IL-6) and Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) were measured by Real Time PCR method. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 16 software. To analyze the findings, To analyze the findings, one-way analysis of variance was used (P≥0.05).

Resistance training caused a significant decrease in GPx activity (P=0.001) compared to the control group. IL-6 gene expression in the training + testosterone group was significantly more than the training group (P=0.04) and the control group (P=0.001). Training + testosterone caused a significant increase in TNF-α gene expression compared to the training group (P=0.02) and the control group (P=0.008). Furthermore, the level of GPx activity in the training + testosterone group was significantly lower than the control group (P=0.001), but no significant difference was observed in the training + testosterone groups and the training group (P=0.93).

It seems that testosterone abuse along with intense resistance training is associated with a decrease in the function of the antioxidant system and increase in inflammatory markers in the kidney tissue.