Aerobic exercise ameliorates myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury and thrombosis of diabetic rats via activation of AMPK/Sirt1/PGC-1α pathway.

This current work is aimed to make investigations for the action mechanism of aerobic exercise in rats with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) after myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury (MI/RI). The high-fat diet was used to induce T2DM in male Wistar rats. After treatments, the rats in the exercise groups were underwent swimming training for 8 weeks. Two days later, all the rats were subjected to perform MI/RI experiments via left anterior descending artery ligation and reperfusion. The blood samples and myocardial tissues were collected for biochemistry analysis and histology assessment. The results demonstrated that aerobic exercise reduced the levels of serum glucose, total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and thrombosis in T2DM rats. In addition, aerobic exercise further decreased the levels of myocardial injury markers and also repressed inflammation responses. Furthermore, the AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK)/silent information regulator factor 2-related enzyme 1 (Sirt1)/peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator 1-alpha (PGC-1α) pathway could be activated by aerobic exercise. In a word, aerobic exercise may attenuate myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury and repress thrombosis via activation of the AMPK/Sirt1/PGC-1α pathway in DM rats.