Exercise, however, eliminated the diet-associated difference in glycogen in the heart (Fig. 2D). Table 3 shows the plasma free amino acid profiles for the three diets in the sedentary and exercised animals. With the exception of aspartic acid, significant differences were observed for all the amino acids as a result of either diet or exercise. The differences found
for glutamate, glutamine and the branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) are of particular interest. In the sedentary animals, the whey proteins (WP and WPH) produced an increase in the levels of glutamate, but only WPH increased the levels of leucine and isoleucine. Exercise tended to cause a decrease in most amino acids. Glutamine concentrations were lower in the casein and most of the WPH exercised animals, whereas valine was lower in the exercised animals, independent of the diet. Finally, exercise caused a decrease in glutamate Ruxolitinib supplier and leucine in the animals that consumed selleck chemicals llc WPH. The data in Table
4 show that consumption of the WPH diet decreased blood glucose levels in the sedentary animals, although the levels remained within the range of normal values. However, in the exercised animals the diet did not affect blood sugar levels. With respect to the uric acid concentrations the exercised animals consuming the WPH diet showed higher levels than those fed the casein diet, whereas there were no differences in uric acid among the sedentary groups. Exercise alone increased the uric acid levels in animals consuming the WP and WPH Glycogen branching enzyme diets, but not for the casein diet. The remaining parameters, CK, LDH and urea, appeared to be unaltered in all the groups. The animals consuming the WP diet exhibited increased blood creatinine levels regardless of exercise. The protein sources also affected total blood proteins: this parameter was increased by both WP and WPH diets in both the sedentary and exercised groups. Serum albumin responded similarly, except that exercise independently increased serum
albumin levels. For the liver marker AST, the data revealed that while the diet had no effect, exercise alone increased the values. The ALT parameter, however, showed a decrease in the sedentary groups that consumed either the WP or WPH diets, but no difference was observed in ALT as a function of diet in the exercised groups. The corticosterone concentration was higher in the exercised group than in the sedentary group, regardless of the diet consumed. However, for the exercised groups, consumption of the WPH diet resulted in the highest levels of this hormone. No reports were found in the literature relating to the effect of whey protein intake on the expression of HSP70. Previous results indicate that the HSP70 is strongly induced by different types of stress while its expression is very low or undetectable under conditions of normal homoeostasis (Rohde et al., 2005), which is consistent with our data for the sedentary animals.