Exercise made diabetic mice healthier. But what about people

(ORDO NEWS) — Researchers have shown that exercise can counteract vasoconstriction due to diabetes, and have reported drugs already under development that can mimic these effects.

Sport is life. And in this case, it can really help prolong a comfortable life for people with diabetes.

Exercise is a well-established way to manage diabetes, but we still have much to learn about the mechanisms that govern these relationships.

Scientists at the Medical College of Georgia have turned their attention to the body’s natural ability to grow new blood vessels – the process of angiogenesis – and how exercise can promote this through so-called exosomes.

Exosomes are bags filled with valuable biological cargo. Two ingredients of particular interest to the authors are the antioxidant SOD3, which helps maintain healthy levels of reactive oxygen species vital for cell signaling, and the ATP7A protein, which delivers essential copper minerals to cells. Diabetes is known to impair these key biological functions.

How exercise can help people with diabetes

The scientists conducted experiments to explore how exercise can alter the contents of exosomes that carry cargo to endothelial cells that line blood vessels and are key players in angiogenesis.

In their work, the scientists followed mice that regularly ran on a wheel for two weeks, as well as a group of healthy middle-aged adults who regularly completed one 45-minute moderate-intensity cardio session.

In both groups, exosomes were found to deliver more ATP7A protein to endothelial cells, as well as more SOD3.

Although this did not significantly affect the weight of the mice, the scientists observed an increase in endothelial function and markers required for angiogenesis, such as vascular endothelial growth factor.

According to the authors, the results of the study raise the prospect of developing “synthetic exosomes” that recreate this effect.

Some of them are already being studied for use as drug delivery mechanisms in a wide range of diseases, and scientists believe that they can be adapted to combat angiogenesis impairment in diabetics.

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