ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Hepatobiliary Diseases
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1609751
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Gut-Liver Axis in MASLD: Microbiome, Metabolism, Disease Progression and Therapeutic PathwaysView all articles
Comparative effects of different loads of aerobic exercise on lipid metabolism in MASLD rats: a perspective from the gut-liver axis
Provisionally accepted
- Harbin Sport University, Harbin, China
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Objective: Exercise training has been shown to be effective in ameliorating obesity-related diseases, but the therapeutic effects of different loads of exercise on metabolic dysfunction-a ssociated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) as well as the underlying mechanisms by which e xercise is based on the enterohepatic axis and thus alleviates MASLD are still unclear. Ther efore, the present study aimed to clarify the optimal exercise load for improving MASLD a nd to reveal its molecular mechanisms in the treatment of metabolic-associated fatty liver di sease (MASLD) in the context of the enterohepatic axis.Methods: Forty male rats were randomly divided into two groups: NFD (n = 8) and HFD (n = 32). The rats in the NFD group were fed a normal chow, while those in the HFD gr oup were fed a high-fat chow. Following an eight-week period of observation, the rats in t he high-fat diet (HFD) group were separated into four further groups for the purpose of an alysis: (1) LEH (low-load aerobic exercise)-8; (2) MEH (medium-load aerobic exercise)-8;(3) HEH (high-load aerobic exercise)-8; and (4) HFD-8. At the conclusion of the experimen t, blood, liver, and ileum samples were collected for analysis of the rats' baseline conditions, hepatic lipid metabolism, bile acid pathway and gut microbiota, and synthesis of analyses.The development of lipid metabolism disorders, insulin resistance, and hepatic steat osis in MASLD rats was improved to different degrees in all three exercise modes. It also restored the high-fat diet (HFD)-induced intestinal barrier dysfunction and balanced the hom eostasis of the gut-liver axis. Aerobic exercise also upregulated bile acid-related gene expres sion modulated butyrate-producing bacterial taxa, and adjusted the abundance of butyrate-gen erating bacteria.Compared with low-load aerobic exercise, medium-and high-load aerobic exerc ise was more beneficial in modulating lipid metabolism dysfunction in MASLD rats, and to some extent, high-load aerobic exercise was superior to medium-load aerobic exercise.
Keywords: MASLD, exercise training, Lipid Metabolism, Bile acid pathway, Gut-liver axis
Received: 10 Apr 2025; Accepted: 11 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 邓, 李, 蒋, 林, 石, 刘 and 徐. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
坤 栋 邓, Harbin Sport University, Harbin, China
飞 宇 刘, Harbin Sport University, Harbin, China
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