RESEARCH ARTICLE Exercises in Hot and Humid Environment Caused Liver Injury in a Rat Model

. These authors contributed equally to this work. Objective: To investigate injury pattern during intense exercises in hot and humid environment particularly on liver in a rat exertional heat stroke model. Methods: We randomly divided 30 rats into a control group (CG), a normal temperature (25¡2˚C, 60%¡5 % humidity) exercise group (NTEG) and a high temperature and high humidity (35¡2˚C, 80%¡10 % humidity) exercising group (HTEG), each comprising 10 animals. The NTEG and HTEG rats were forced to run in a treadmill for 1 hour maximum at 20 rpm. We analyzed liver cells of all three groups with JC-1 dye and flow cytometry for apoptosis rates in addition to liver tissue 8- hydroxy deoxyguanosine (8- OhdG) and blood serum IL–6, tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-a), alanine aminotransferase ALT, aspartate amino transferase (AST), serum creatinine (CREA), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), creatine phosphate kinase (CK) concentrations. Result: Compared with NTEG rats, beside reduced exercise tolerance (60¡5 vs