Abstract
It is has been reported that obesity can result in the accumulation of various proinflammatory factors such as resistin in adipose tissue. This study aimed to investigate the effect of HIIT on resistin gene expression in visceral adipose tissues in diet-induced obese rats. Nineteen male rats were used in the present study. 6 rats (control group) were fed with standard diet for 8 weeks and then dissected and their visceral adipose tissues were sampled. At the same time, 13 rats were fed with a high-fat diet for 8 weeks. From these obese rats, 6 animals (fat group) were fed a high-fat diet for another 8 weeks and 7 animals (training group), underwent HIIT for 8 weeks. Training included running on a treadmill at 90% VO(2)max with 5 repetitions of 30 seconds in each session at 29 to 36 meters per minute with one-minute active rest intervals. The latter two groups were also dissected and their visceral adipose tissues were sampled. Measurement of resistin gene expression in tissue samples was done using real-time polymerase chain reaction. Data were analysed with one-way ANOVA. Obesity increased resistin gene expression in rats 2-fold but it was not statistically significant (P=0.618). HIIT reduced resistin gene expression 8-fold compared to the fat group, but this reduction was not significant, too (P=0.349). In conclusion, HIIT could reduce resistin gene expression as a proinflammatory factor in the visceral adipose tissue of obese rat. Despite the non-significance of differences, resistin gene expression was reduced several folds, so further studies are needed in this field.