The Interactive Effect of Eight Weeks of Aerobic Training and Vitamin D3 Supplementation on Cardiac Irisin Protein Levels, Insulin Resistance and Lipid Profile in Rats Induced with Type 2 Diabetes

The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of eight weeks of aerobic training and vitamin D3 supplementation on cardiac irisin protein levels, insulin resistance and lipid profile in rats induced with type 2 diabetes.

Forty male Wistar rats after induction of type 2 diabetes through the combination of high-fat diet +streptozotocin were randomly divided into five groups: 1) Normal control (NC) ,2) Diabetic Control (DC), 3) Diabetes+ Aerobic Training (DAT) ,4) Diabetes+ Vitamin D3 (DVD) and 5) Diabetes+ Aerobic Training+ Vitamin D3 (DVDAT). Aerobic training program (five times a week with 60% intensity of maximum running speed for one hour) and vitamin D3 supplementation (10000 IU/kg every week) were performed. After anesthetizing the rats, blood samples were taken to evaluate serum glucose, insulin, triglyceride, cholesterol, LDL and HDL levels. The heart tissue was isolated to evaluate the irisin.protein.

The results of the one way analysis of variance showed that the irisin protein level of the heart tissue in DAT, DVD and DVDAT groups had a significant increase of 14.04, 12.28 and 24.56%, respectively compared to DC (P<0.001). Insulin resistance also showed a significant decrease in all intervention groups compared to the DC group (P<0.001); However, HDL, triglyceride and cholesterol levels were significantly decreased in DAT and DVDAT groups compared to DC group (P<0.001).

According to the results, it seems that eight weeks of aerobic training and vitamin D3 supplementation probably improves the insulin resistance index and lipid profile in rats induced to type 2 diabetes through increasing the cardiac irisin.