Exercise in rats with liver injury induced by carbon tetrachloride or bile duct obstruction. Blood cholic acid and liver histology.

Abstract

Tolerance of exercise in rats with liver injury was evaluated by the response of plasma cholylglycine (CG) and by liver histology in two experiments with CCl4 hepatocellular damage and in two other experiments with cholestatic liver injury induced by obstruction of the common bile duct. (1) Rats swimming daily for 1 h while exposed to five successive doses of CCl4 and studied at rest, had a trend (P less than 0.06) to higher CG and a higher plasma SGPT (P less than 0.05) than sedentary CCl4 rats. (2) In rats recovering from four successive doses of CCl4 there were no differences between CG curves before, during, and after exercise, except at 48 h of recovery when exercise elevated CG (P less than 0.05). (3) Sixteen days after ligation of the bile duct CG was high but not affected by exercise, 45 days after ligation exercise resulted in further increase of CG (P less than 0.05). (4) When ligation of the bile duct lasted only 24 h, exercise prior to release of the obstruction did not affect CG. Exercise 8 h and 27 h after release of ligation resulted in an increase in CG (P less than 0.05). Return to pre-exercise CG occurred 30 min after exercise. CG was a useful indicator of liver injury showing a positive correlation with the CCl4 dose and a negative correlation with recovery from CCl4. Exercise had only mildly adverse effect in hepatotoxic and cholestatic liver injury. CG appeared to respond more sensitively to exercise after release of bile duct obstruction than in CCl4 hepatocellular injury.