Introduction: Today, diabetes is one of the leading causes of death in worldwide. Nutritional intervention and exercise training known as main strategies for control and management diabetes. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of grape seed extract consumption with moderate intensity aerobic exercise on some markers of cardiac myocyte apoptosis in male Wistar rats with type 1 diabetic.
Materials and Methods: Forty adult male Wistar rats with an initial weight range of 160-220 g were divided into 5 groups of including diabetic / training + extract, diabetic / training, diabetic / extract, diabetic / control and healthy / control (8 heads per group). The rats of training groups performed aerobic exercise for 60 minutes a day at an average speed of 28 meters per minute (intensity equivalent to 70 to 75% of maximum oxygen consumption and training volume of 8.4 km per week). Grape seed extract was consumed by gavage with dosage of 40 mg / kg per day. All groups 48 hours after the last training session, was dissected and heart tissue was collected and Bcl-2, sFas and FasL analysis was performed.
Results: Aerobic training and consumption of grape seed extract (both and each alone) significantly increased FasL and BcL-2 and also significantly decreased sFas and sFas/FasL in type 1 diabetic rats (P < 0.05); however, the combination of aerobic training and consumption of grape seed extract increased FasL and BcL-2 further and also decreased sFas and sFas/FasL in these rats compared to the training and consumption of the extract alone, which was a statistically significant difference (P < 0.05).
Conclusion: By combining the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise along with the consumption of grape seed extract, more anti-apoptotic effects may be induced in the myocytes of type 1 diabetic rats.