effect of aerobic exercise on the expression of ppargc-1α and sirt1 in cardiac muscle of diabetic male wistar rats

Background: type 2 diabetic patients have an abnormally high rate of mortality dueto cardiovascular diseases. given the adverse impact of diabetes on mitochondrialbiogenesis in heart cells and the role of exercise on mitochondrial biogenesissignaling, this study investigated the effect of eight weeks of aerobic exercise onpgc-1a and sirt1 gene expression in the myocardium of diabetic male wistar rats.materials and methods: this experimental study was conducted on 24 adult male wistarrats (eight weeks old and weighing 278.26±18.06g), which were randomly assigned tothree groups of healthy control (n=8), diabetic control (n=8), and diabetes+aerobic exercise(n=8). the exercise protocol consisted of eight weeks of exercise, three sessions a week,starting with 10 minutes of running at a speed of 10m/s in the first week and ultimatelyreaching 40 minutes of running at a speed of 18m/s in the eighth week. the changes wereanalyzed using the one-way analysis of variance and tukey’s post hoc test.results: significant differences were observed between the groups in terms of body mass(p=0.0001), fasting glucose (p=0.004), serum insulin (p=0.023), and myocardial ppargc-1α expression (p=0.031). the post hoc test represented a notable weight decrease in thediabetic control group (p=0.001) and the diabetic exercise group (p=0.001) compared to thehealthy control group. the results also showed a significant increase in the glucose level ofthe diabetic control group compared to the healthy control group (p=0.008) and a notabledecrease in the diabetic exercise group’s glucose level in comparison with the diabetic controlgroup (p=0.001). a significant decrease was also observed in the insulin level of the diabeticexercise group compared to the diabetic control group (p=0.034). the results of the post hoctest for ppargc-1α expression changes showed significantly increased myocardial ppargc-1αexpression in the diabetic exercise group compared to the diabetic control group (p=0.009).no significant change was detected in the expression of sirt1 (p=0.075).conclusion: the findings suggest that exercise positively affects insulin resistance andweight changes by regulating genes related to mitochondrial biogenesis.