effect of home-based aerobic exercise on leukocyte tert gene expression without altering dna oxidative damage in postmenopausal women

Objectives: in middle-aged women, the postmenopausal period is associated with increased oxidative, inflammatory, and psychological stress. we intend to investigate the effect of home-based aerobic exercise (hae) on serum levels of 8-hydroxy-2’-deoxyguanosine (8-c) and the expression of telomerase reverse transcriptase (tert) in leukocytes of postmenopausal women.methods: a total of 20 sedentary postmenopausal women who had at least 12 months passed since their last menstruation participated in the study voluntarily. their mean±sd age, height, weight, and body mass index (bmi) were respectively 52.4±3.8 years, 161.4±3.7 cm, 74.4±6.8 kg, and 28.6±3.4 kg/m2. they were randomly divided into two groups: home-based aerobic exercise (hae, n=10) and inactive control (con, n=10). hae group undertook 4 weeks of home-based aerobic exercise (4 d/wk, intensity: 70%-80% maximal heart rate) with online supervision. participants’ weight and fasting blood samples (12-h fasting state) were measured and taken before and 48 hours after the intervention. tert expression in blood leukocytes and serum levels of 8-ohdg were assessed by real-time pcr and elisa methods, respectively. the collected data were analyzed using mixed (2×2) repeated measure anova and independent samples t-test in spss software. a significance level of p<0.05 was considered for all tests.results: the findings showed that 4 weeks of hae increased tert expression significantly compared to the con (es=0.40, p<0.05). although 8-ohdg serum level in the hae group increased following training compared to pre-training (p<0.05), no significant difference was observed between the con and hae groups (p>0.05). also, the interaction effect on 8-ohdg was not significant (es=0.11, p>0.05). in addition, after 4 weeks of hae, body weight and bmi significantly decreased in the training group compared to the control (p<0.05).discussion: according to these findings, hea effectively reduces telomere erosion and improves weight control in postmenopausal women.