evaluation of bcl-2 and bax expression in the heart of diabetic rats after four weeks of high intensity interval training

Background and objectives: diabetes is one of the most common diseases and a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. studies have shown that regular exercise can affect apoptosis in cardiomyocytes. the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of high-intensity interval training on the expression of bcl-2 and bax as important apoptosis factors in diabetic rats. methods: after inducing diabetes in 20 male wistar rats (weighing 250 ± 1.15 g), the rats were randomly divided into a control group and a training group. the training group performed high-intensity interval training five days a week for four weeks, and the control group did not perform any training. after the intervention, rna was extracted and tcf mrna was subjected to real time rt-pcr for measuring bax and bcl-2 expression in the heart tissue of diabetic rats. data were analyzed by ibm spss statistics v22 using independent t-test. p-values less than 0.05 were considered as statistically significant. results: the expression of bcl-2 increased significantly and the expression of bax decreased significantly after the four-week training intervention. conclusion: the high-intensity interval training can have beneficial effects on the expression of apoptotic genes in rats with type 2 diabetes.