CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Menopause women show an increase in cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Sodium/proton exchanger (NHE) and sodium/bicarbonate cotransporter (NBC) are the main alkalinizing mechanisms of the cardiomyocytes. Last year we reported that the NHE activity is increased, whereas the NBCe1 is decreased in ovariectomized (OVX) rats. Ennis et al. have demonstrated that an aerobic routine is able to transform a pathological cardiac hypertrophy (CH) to a physiological one, partly due to an inhibition of the NHE activity. Additionally, it was described an increase in NBCe1 activity in mice after a swimming routine. Here we test the hypothesis that swimming is able to prevent the cardiovascular modifications previously described by our team in OVX rats. Bilateral ovariectomy was performed in 10 weeks old Wistar rats. OVX rats were randomly assigned to a sedentary group (OVXsed) or to an aerobic swimming routine (8 weeks/5 days a week) (OVXex).Body weight and visceral adipose tissue are increased in OVXsed rats, and both changes are prevented by the swimming training. Left ventricular mass index (echocardiography) was higher in OVX rats in comparison with Sham. (LVMI (mg/mm) Sham 20.14±2.35 n=2; OVXsed 23.99±2.17, n=5; OVXex 26.94±4.53 n=4). Future experiments such as fibrosis, vasculature and molecular markers are needed to determine the type of CH. NHE activity was increased in OVXsed myocytes, and swimming showed a tendency to prevent it (JH at pH=6.8 (mmol/min): Sham 1.63±0.28 n=4; OVXsed 2.04±0.18, n=3; OVXex 1.73±0.28 n=4)NBCe1 activity was diminished in OVXsed myocytes, whereas OVXex recovered the impaired activity (pH= Sham: 0.25±0.02, n=4; OVXsed 0.10±0.02*, n=8; OVXex 0.14±0.01*, n=13; *p