Long-Term Moderate Exercise Combined with Metformin Treatment Induces an Hormetic Response That Prevents Strength and Muscle Mass Loss in Old Female Wistar Rats

Figure 1

Body weight, length, and BMI. Wistar rat growth curves were performed by evaluating the body weight (a) and the nasorectal length (b). Using these data, the BMI for each group was obtained (c). Measurements were determined every 4 months (4, 8, 12, 18, 20, and 24 months) in sedentary (S) and exercised (E) rats. Each point in the curve represents the mean of all independent experiments carried out in each group of animals (); the growth curves were established using a polynomial adjustment (). Since the best parameter to define the different growth stages of Wistar rats is the BMI, this parameter was used to compare the different experimental groups (d). The experimental groups evaluated (S, E, SM12, EM12, SM18, and EM18) are described in detail in Materials and Methods. The differences between the experimental groups with respect to the sedentary group (S) are marked with the letter . The exact probability value is indicated in the graph. The differences between ages were determined by comparing each age with its predecessor and are denoted as for the sedentary rats and for the exercised rats. The exact probability value is indicated in the graph. The comparisons were established by a multivariate test and corroborated with a Student -test.

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