the effect of training and royal jelly on the expression of foxo3a, mafbx and ampk of cardiomyocytes in obese rats

Introduction: overweight and obesity increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases. obesity is also known to contribute to heart muscle atrophy. this study investigates the effects of aerobic exercise and royal jelly (rj) supplementation on indices of heart tissue atrophy and hypertrophy in rats fed a high-fat diet. methods: forty-five male wistar rats were randomly divided into five groups (n=9 per group): normal diet (nd), high-fat diet (hfd), high-fat diet with training (hfdt), high-fat diet with royal jelly (hfdrj), and high-fat diet with both training and royal jelly (hfdtrj). the supplement groups received 100 mg of royal jelly per kg of body weight orally every day. the exercise program involved running on a treadmill at an intensity of 50-60% of vo2max, performed five days a week for eight weeks. data were analyzed using one-way anova and tukey’s post hoc test with a significance level of p<0.05. results: in the hfd group, the expression of foxo3a and mafbx was significantly increased, while ampk expression was decreased compared to the nd group (p=0.000). there was a significant decrease in foxo3a and mafbx expression in the hfdt (p=0.033 and p=0.027), hfdrj (p=0.049 and p=0.041), and hfdtrj (p=0.000 and p=0.000) groups compared to the hfd group. additionally, the hfdtrj group showed significant reductions in foxo3a and mafbx compared to the hfdt (p=0.045 and p=0.041) and hfdrj (p=0.030 and p=0.027) groups. a significant increase in ampk expression was observed in the hfdt (p=0.002), hfdrj (p=0.007), and hfdtrj (p=0.000) groups compared to the hfd group. furthermore, the hfdtrj group exhibited higher ampk expression compared to the hfdt (p=0.048) and hfdrj (p=0.015) groups. conclusions: aerobic training, with or without the intake of royal jelly, leads to a reduction in the expression of foxo3a and mafbx and an increase in ampk. these changes may result in decreased atrophy indices and enhanced hypertrophy of cardiomyocytes in rats fed a high-fat diet.