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Experimental infection with Trypanosoma cruzi in mice: influence of exercise versus strains and sexes

BACKGROUND: Chagas disease is an infection caused by Trypanosoma cruzi that affects eight million people in Latin America. One factor linked to the lifestyle that significantly interferes in the response to infection is physical exercise, depending on the kind, intensity and frequency of the activity practiced. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the influence of pre-infection chronic moderate aerobic exercise in the development of experimental infection with T. cruzi in mice of two distinct lineages from both sexes. METHODS: 30-day old Swiss and BALB/c mice (male and female) were divided into four groups for each strain and sex (total 16) and named as follows: SM (Swiss males), SF (Swiss females) BM (BALB/c mice) and BF (BALB/c mice). The groups were: NT NI (untrained uninfected) T NI (trained not infected); NT I (untrained infected), TI (trained infected). The aerobic exercise pre-moderate chronic infection training was performed with one daily session for eight weeks, five times a week. The inoculum was 1,400 blood trypomastigotes of Y strain of T. cruzi intraperitoneally. The peak of parasites, parasitemia total and average measurements of the serum activities of CK and CK-MB were evaluated. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The physical training promoted reduction in peak, parasitemia parasites and total average in animals infected with T. cruzi in both strains and sexes. Physical training induced reduction in serum activities of CK and CK-MB in animals infected with T. cruzi of both sexes and from the two strains, except for females in the Swiss CK activity.

physical training; Trypanosoma cruzi; creatine kinase (CK); creatine kinase-MB (CK-MB); parasite


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