Changes in cardiac function parameters in 12-13-week-old, high-intensity exercised, healthy white experimental rats

Abstract

The aim of the study was to evaluate cardiac functional parameters after 11 weeks of dosed, high-intensity exercises on a treadmill in 12-13-week-old healthy rats. In general, physical activity is the cheapest and safest method to reduce cardiovascular disease risk factors (1,2,3). Within the scope of our study, we subjected 12-13-week-old healthy male rats to high-intensity exercise on a treadmill for 11 weeks and then studied cardiac function parameters by echocardiography to assess the effects of exercise on the healthy heart. The rats were divided into 2 groups: 1) control group, which did not receive any execrise (n=8); 2) The study group performed 10 full rotations on the treadmill per day, with 1-minute active breaks in between, 5 days a week (treadmill speed 19m/min, incline 300) – n=8.Cardiac function parameters were assessed through transthoracic echocardiography twice (at the start of the study and after 11 weeks). Compared to the control group, there were changes in the functional parameters in terms of improvement in the rats of the study group, in particular, the ejection fraction, stroke volume, left ventricular wall thickness, end-diastolic volume increased, and on the contrary, the end-systolic volume decreased, compared to the data of non-trained rats of the same sex and age.The present study can be considered as another step forward in the study of functional changes of healthy heart developed on the background of high-intensity physical activity.