Chitosan combined with swimming promotes health in rats.

PURPOSE

Chitosan is an easily accessible and biocompatible natural molecule which facilitate the immune system. In recent studies, chitosan is being applied to the drug nanosphere to deliver drugs. However, whether chitosan could promote health under exercising condition remains yet to be elucidated. Hence, we designed to investigate the effect of chitosan on swimming rats.

METHODS

Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were divided into four groups, exercise with chitosan, exercise with water, sedentary with chitosan, and sedentary with water. After four weeks of exercise and chitosan/water gavage, the blood was collected, and its biochemical index, complete blood count, and related parameters, and cytokines were detected and analyzed.

RESULTS

The level of blood urea nitrogen (p = 0.0380), total cholesterol (p = 0.048), and low-density lipoprotein (p = 0.0338) were decreased, while the number of red blood cells (p = 0.001), hematocrit (p = 0.01), and mean corpuscular volume (p = 0.039) were increased in chitosan group. Furthermore, the combination of chitosan and swimming decreased the red blood cells distribution width.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study support that chitosan could facilitate the health during exercise.