Resistance training and caloric restriction prevent systolic blood pressure rise by improving the nitric oxide effect on smooth muscle and morphological changes in the aorta of ovariectomized rats - Fig 6

Effects of ovariectomy (OVX), resistance training (RT), caloric restriction (CR) and their association (RT+CR) on (A) Histological change in aortic wall structure in categories: Category 1 (Red)- Well-defined endothelial cells, smooth muscle cell without visible changes, linear and parallel elastic fibers, interspersed with smooth muscle cells; Category 2 (Green)- Less endothelial cells, fewer smooth muscle cells, elastic fibers slightly undulated with minimal space and fewer smooth muscle cells between them; Category 3 (Blue)- Few endothelial cells, misshapen structures, altered, wrinkled, thick elastic fibers with minimal space and less smooth muscle between them. The values are presented as percentages (%) with no statistical tests performed. Colors arrows indicate: black- endothelial cells; yellow- smooth muscle cells; and white- elastic fibers; (B) Histological Changes in Aortic Wall (%), and (C) Number of elastic fibers, shown as units, stained with Trichrome-Masson. Letters superscript represent significant difference between groups by a one-way ANOVA with post hoc Tukey test (p<0.05), a ≠ b, b ≠ c, c ≠ d.