en فیزیولوژی ورزشی Sport Physiology تحقيقي Original Paper <div><strong>Background and objectives:</strong> Cardiac apoptosis is one of the most important cardiovascular complications of diabetes. We aimed to investigate the changes of Bax, Bcl2 and caspase 3 in cardiac tissue of diabetic rats after six weeks aerobic exercise.<br> <strong>Methods:</strong> Thirty two male Wistar rats were randomly divided into healthy control, diabetes control and diabetes + exercise groups. Diabetes was induced by intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin solution (55 mg/kg). Two weeks after the injection, fasting blood glucose levels were measured to confirm induction of diabetes. The exercise program was performed five days a week for six weeks. Variables were evaluated by ELISA and western blot analysis. All statistical analyses were performed in SPSS (version 22) using ANOVA and at significance of 0.05.<br> <strong>Results: </strong>The induction of diabetes in the control groups resulted in a significant increase in Bax, Bax/Bcl2 ratio and a significant decrease in Bcl2 levels (P=0.024). The six-week training exercise in diabetic groups significantly decreased Bax and Bax/Bcl2 ratio and significantly increased Bcl2 (P=0.018).<br> <strong>Conclusion:</strong> Our finding showed that diabetes could increase apoptosis in cardiac tissue. In addition, the six-week aerobic exercise can be used as a non-pharmacological strategy to reduce diabetes-related apoptosis in cardiomyocytes.</div> apoptosis, aerobic exercise, diabetes,STZ 33 39 http://mlj.goums.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-438-5&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Aghil Sadighi sady1365@yahoo.com 100319475328460018781 100319475328460018781 No Department of Sport physiology, Ayatollah Amoli Branch, Islamic Azad University, Amol, Iran ahmad abdi a.abdi58@gmail.com 100319475328460018782 100319475328460018782 Yes Department of Sport physiology, Ayatollah Amoli Branch, Islamic Azad University, Amol, Iran Mohammad Ali Azarbayjani ali.azarbayjani@gmail.com 100319475328460018783 100319475328460018783 No Department of Sport physiology, Faculty of Physical Education and Sports Science, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran. alireza barari alireza54.barari@gmail.com 100319475328460018784 100319475328460018784 No Department of Sport physiology, Ayatollah Amoli Branch, Islamic Azad University, Amol, Iran