Introduction: While sedentary and obese individuals have shorter telomere lengths (TL) due to their inflammatory status, physical activity may be associated with longer TL. In line of this, physical activity may protect against the deleterious effects of obesity on shortening TL. This study aimed to evaluate the changes of TL of obese women submitted to a concurrent physical training intervention.
Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional interventional study conducted with 7 obese (BMI>30 kg/m²) women (35.1±7 years). The concurrent exercise intervention (strength and aerobic) was performed for 8 weeks (3 times a week with high intensity). Anthropometric (weight, height and body mass index - BMI), body composition assessment (fat mass, by Deuterium oxide), blood collection for TL (by quantitative PCR) and inflammatory cytokines analysis (by Multiplex assays using Luminex) were performed before and after intervention. Shapiro-Wilk test, Wilcoxon test, and Spearman correlation were performed as statistical analyses (p<0.05).
Results: There was a significant increase on TL after the intervention (0.007±0.008 to 0.084±0.1 T/S ratio; p=0.043) and a decrease of fat mass (40±4.9 to 38.2±5.8 kg, p=0.018). However, there were no significant weight loss (83.2±7.7 to 84.2±7.7 kg, p=0.204) or changes of cytokines (IL-6: 1.51±0.42 to 1.33±0.41; p=0.091; IL-10: 1.37±0.25 to 1.33±0.19; p=0.336; IL-4: 26.2±28.1 to 23.6±24.4; p=0.176; IL-1beta: 7.6±9.7 to 6.5±7.2; p=0.172; IL-17a: 1.15±0.15 to 1.1±0.1; p=0.317). Indeed, we observed a tendency for positive correlation between baseline TL and weight changes (r= 0.750; p=0.052). We did not find a correlation between TL and inflammatory biomarkers.
Conclusion: Concurrent physical training intervention promotes telomere elongation in obese women, fat mass decrease, but the obesity inflammatory status is not associated with TL.
Acknowledgements: National Council of Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq)