In subjects with Type 2 diabetes, all exercise training modalities improved metabolic profile. Importantly, aerobic training predominantly ameliorated adipokines concentrations and carotid intima-media thickness progression.

SummaryThe central aim of this review is to address the highly multidisciplinary topic of redox biology as related to exercise using an integrative and comparative approach rather than focusing on blood, skeletal muscle or humans. An attempt is also made to redefine ʻoxidative stressʼ as well as to introduce the term ʻalterations in redox homeostasisʼ to describe changes in redox homeostasis indicating oxidative stress, reductive stress or both. The literature analysis shows that the effects of non-muscledamaging exercise and muscle-damaging exercise on redox homeostasis are completely different. Non-muscle-damaging exercise induces alterations in redox homeostasis that last a few hours post exercise, whereas muscle-damaging exercise causes alterations in redox homeostasis that may persist for and/or appear several days post exercise. Both exhaustive maximal exercise lasting only 30s and isometric exercise lasting 1-3min (the latter activating in addition a small muscle mass) induce systemic oxidative stress. With the necessary modifications, exercise is capable of inducing redox homeostasis alterations in all fluids, cells, tissues and organs studied so far, irrespective of strains and species. More importantly, ʻexercise-induced oxidative stressʼ is not an ʻoddityʼ associated with a particular type of exercise, tissue or species. Rather, oxidative stress constitutes a ubiquitous fundamental biological response to the alteration of redox homeostasis imposed by exercise. The hormesis concept could provide an interpretative framework to reconcile differences that emerge among studies in the field of exercise redox biology. Integrative and comparative approaches can help determine the interactions of key redox responses at multiple levels of biological organization.Key words: antioxidant, biomarker, eccentric, free radical, training. THE JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY 1616The ʻgoodʼ (antioxidants), the ʻbadʼ (reactive species) and the ʻuglyʼ (oxidative stress) 1 The distinction drawn in the section heading is schematically used to parody the popular manichaeistic view that antioxidants are considered 'useful' entities, reactive species are considered 'harmful' entities and oxidative stress is considered a 'negative' state. Certainly, the reality is much more complicated and antioxidants, reactive species and oxidative stress can serve both useful and detrimental roles, which are dependent on the biological context (within an organism), which in turn are greatly dependent on the environmental context (outside an organism). AntioxidantsAdmittedly, to define the term 'antioxidant' is a difficult task. In this paper, antioxidant is defined as any mechanism, structure and/or substance that delays, prevents or removes oxidative modifications to a target molecule (Halliwell and Gutteridge, 2007;Pamplona and Costantini, 2011). Antioxidants can be complex molecules such as the superoxide dismutases and peroxiredoxins, or simpler ones such as uric acid and glutathione (Gutteridge and Halliwell, 2010). They can be broa...

We investigated the effects of clenbuterol on the muscle mass, contractile properties, myosin phenotype, and bioenergetic enzyme activity in the gastrocnemius (GS)-plantaris (PL)-soleus (SO) muscle complex. Rats were sham-injected or treated with clenbuterol (2 mg.kg-1, subcutaneously) for 14 d. Clenbuterol increased (P < 0.05) body weight and muscle complex weight. Also, clenbuterol treatment resulted in an increase in total muscle force production and maximal shortening velocity (P < 0.05). No difference (P > 0.05) in relative force production (force.g-1 muscle) existed between experimental groups. However, muscle fatigue increased with clenbuterol treatment. Myosin heavy chain (MHC) composition was not altered in the GS or PL muscles, but shifted toward the fast Type II MHC in the SO. Myosin light chain (MLC) composition was not altered in any of the muscles. Clenbuterol caused a decrease in oxidative and glycolytic enzyme activity in the GS and PL, but not the SO. These data suggest that the clenbuterol-induced increase in muscle mass and maximal force generation is due to hypertrophy of both fast and slow fibers. Furthermore, these findings support the notion that beta-agonists may be beneficial in combating conditions that result in muscle wasting and dysfunction.