the effect of 12 weeks of aerobic exercise and caloric restriction on nrf2 protein expression in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in rats

Background and aims: one of the most common causes of liver disease is non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (nafld), and its prevalence along with serious clinical problem is a growing. no studies have been conducted on the effect of calorie restriction (cr) and aerobic exercise (ae) on nuclear factor erythroid-related factor 2 (nrf2) in rats with nafld. the present study aimed to assess the effects of 12 weeks of cr and ae on nrf2 protein expression in rats with nafld. methods: a total of 40 rats participated in this study, and 32 of them developed nafld by feeding fatty food (34% fat, 19% protein, and 47% carbohydrates) for eight weeks. rats were classified into five groups: sham, control, cr, ae, and calorie restriction-aerobic exercise (ca). first, 60% of the daily diet was given to the cr and ca groups. ae was done for 12 weeks, five sessions per week on a treadmill for rats. oil red, hematoxylin-eosin (h & e) staining, and protein expression levels in the groups were evaluated. to analyze the data, one-way anova was used at a significance level of p<0.05. results: the results showed a significant difference between the liver fat of the control group and other groups (rc: p=0.001, ae: p=0.001, ra: p=0.001). in healing liver damage, the control group was significantly different from the ca group (p=0.002). regarding the nrf2 protein expression, the ca group had significantly higher expression than the cr group (p=0.028), however there was no significant difference between the ca and ae groups (p=0.44). conclusion: the findings revealed that ae through cr can cause recovery for nafld.