Combined Ursolic Acid and Resistance/Endurance Training Improve Type 3 Diabetes Biomarkers-Related Memory Deficits in Hippocampus of Aged Male Wistar Rats.

Background: Both aging and diabetes are two well-established risk factors related to type 3 diabetes and memory deficits. Accordingly, diabetes multiplies the effects of aging on cognition impairments once these conditions occur simultaneously.

Methods: In this present experimental study, 56 male Wistar rats with HFD/STZ-induced T2D were randomized into seven groups (n = eight animals per group): (1) sedentary old non-diabetic (C); (2) sedentary HFD/STZ-induced T2D (D); (3) sedentary HFD/STZ-induced T2D plus UA (UA) (DU); (4) endurance-trained HFD/STZ-induced T2D (DE); (5) resistance-trained HFD/STZ-induced T2D (DR); (6) endurance-trained HFD/STZ-induced T2D plus UA (DEU); and (7) resistance-trained STZ-diabetic plus UA (DRU) rats. Two-way ANOVA was applied to measure the training, supplementation, and interaction effect on serum and gene expression outcomes.

Result: The study results established no significant interaction effect between the UA supplementation and the resistance/endurance training with regard to the levels of glucose (P = 0.534), insulin (P = 0.327), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (P = 0.191), and insulin-like growth factor-1 (P = 0.448).

Conclusions: To develop novel practical nutritional strategies involving UA intake, further studies are thus needed to clarify how chronic consumption of UA with/without resistance/endurance training reverses cognition disorder process in old male Wistar rats with HFD/STZ-induced T2D.