Investigating the effects of endurance, resistance and combined training on reproductive hormones and sperm parameters of streptozotocin-nicotinamide diabetic male rats.

Purpose: Diabetes mellitus type 2 with damaging effects on reproductive hormones and sperm quality parameters can often cause infertility in men. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of endurance, resistance and concurrent training on reproductive hormones, sperm parameter in the diabetic type 2 male rats.

Methods: In this experimental study 60 Wistar rats (200 ± 50 g) were randomly assigned into 5 groups: control; diabetic; diabetic endurance training; diabetic resistance training and diabetic concurrent training. For inducing diabetes, after 12 hours of food starvation nicotinamide (120 mg/kg) and STZ (65 mg/kg) were intraperitoneally injected. Twenty-four hours after the last training session, left epididymis of the rats was examined for studying sperm parameters and blood serum samples were examined for evaluating reproductive hormones. Data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA and Turkey's Post Hoc test.

Results: Ten weeks of endurance and concurrent training induced significant decrease in the blood glucose in comparison to the diabetic group ( P  < 0.05). In addition, endurance, resistance and concurrent training induced significant increases in serum testosterone and LH levels in the comparison to the diabetic group ( P  < 0.005). In addition, sperm parameters revealed significant improvements in compared to the diabetic group ( P  = 0.002).

Conclusion: Endurance, resistance and combined training might improve sperm parameters, including viability and motility of sperms through increasing the serum testosterone and LH levels in rat model of diabetes mellitus type 2.