Effect of regular aerobic exercise with ozone exposure on peripheral leukocytepopulations in Wistar male rats

Background: the immune system in endurance athletes may be at risk for deleterious effects of gasous pollutantssuch as ambient ozone. therefore, this study was performed to assess the effect of regular aerobic exercise with ozoneexposure on peripheral leukocytes populations in male wistar rats.methods: twenty eight 8 weeks old rats were selected and randomly divided into four groups of ozone-unexposed anduntrained (control or group 1, n = 6), ozone-exposed and untrained (group 2, n = 6), ozone-unexposed and trained(group 3, n = 8), ozone-exposed and trained (group 4, n = 8). all animals in groups 3 and 4 were regularly running (20m/min, 30 min/day) on a treadmill for 7 weeks (5 day/week). after the last ozone exposure [0.3 ppm, 30 min per sessions],blood samples were obtained from the cardiac puncture and hematological parameters as well as blood lactate were measuredusing automatic analyzers. data were expressed as means (± sd) and analyzed by anova and pearson's correlationtests at p < 0.05.results: all the hematological parameters differences (except rbc and hemoglobin rate) were significantly higher inthe trained groups (p < 0.001). however, ozone-induced leukocytosis in the trained (but not in the sedentary) rats was statistically higher than in the counterpart groups.conclusions: repeated acute ozone exposure has more additive effect on peripheral leukocyte counts in active animals.but, more researches are needed to identify effects of ozone exposure on other components of the immune systemin athletes and non-athletes.