the effect of eight weeks of endurance training with saffron on cytochrome c and calmodulin kinase 2 on the heart tissue of alzheimer’s rats treated with trimethyl tin (tmt)

Introduction: a proper diet and physical activity benefit alzheimer’s disease (ad). therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the impact of endurance training (et) with saffron (sa) consumption on cytochrome c and calmodulin kinase 2 in the heart tissue of ad rats.methods: in this experimental study, 40 rats (ad induced by intraperitoneal 8mg/kg trimethyl tin) were divided into five groups of eight animals comprising: (1) ad, (2) endurance training (et), (3) saffron (sa), (4) et+sa, and (5) sham (saffron solvent) groups. the et and et+sa groups ran on a treadmill at 15 to 20m/min (three sessions a week for eight weeks), each lasting 15 to 30 minutes. in addition, the sa and et+sa groups were given 25mg/kg saffron extract per day. the shapiro-wilk test, one-way anova, and tukey’s post hoc tests were used to analyze the data (p≥0.05).results: et, sa, and et+sa significantly decreased cytochrome c and calmodulin kinase 2 (p≥0.05). in addition, et+sa significantly reduced calmodulin kinase two more than training (p=0.04).conclusion: based on the results, training and saffron consumption appear to have the same impacts on reducing cytochrome c and calmodulin kinase 2. however, simultaneous training and saffron consumption can improve the gene expression levels of calmodulin kinase 2.