Protective effect of moderate-intensity endurance training and high- intensity interval training on the cardiac apoptosis in high fat diet fed rats

Background and Aim: Lack of physical activity and a high-fat diet (HFD) cause an imbalance between energy consumption and energy intake. Exercise training prevents and controls obesity. Therefore, the recent study aimed to compare the effect of moderate-intensity endurance training (MICT) and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) on the cardiac apoptosis in HFD fed rats. Methods In the present study, 20 male Wistar rats (age = 8 weeks) were purchased and randomly placed in four groups of five: healthy control with normal diet (HC), sedentary control with HFD (SC), high-intensity interval training with HFD (HIIT), and moderate-intensity endurance training with HFD (MICT). Eight weeks of HIIT training was performed for one group, and eight weeks of MICT training was performed for the other group. One-way analysis of variance with Tukey's post-hoc test was used to analyze the data (with a significance level of P < 0.05). Results After eight weeks of MICT and HIIT training, blood glucose and insulin levels, body weight, triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoproteins-cholesterol (LDL-C), inflammatory indicators, and FOXO3 protein content significantly decreased (P < 0.05), and protein content of AKT as well as PI3K significantly increased (P < 0.05) in HIIT and MICT groups, and there was no significant difference between HIIT and MICT groups (P ≥ 0.05). Conclusion It seems that both exercises played a critical role in the cardiac apoptosis treatment by modulating insulin and blood glucose levels, lipid profile, inflammatory factors as well as the PI3K/AKT pathways and FOXO3 protein content in HFD fed rats.