14-weeks combined exercise epigenetically modulated 118 genes of menopausal women with prediabetes

Abstract

BackgroundPre-diabetes precedes Diabetes Mellitus (DM) disease and is a critical period for hyperglycemia treatment, especially for menopausal women, considering all metabolic alterations due to hormonal changes. Recently, the literature has demonstrated the role of physical exercise in epigenetic reprogramming to modulate the gene expression patterns of metabolic conditions, such as hyperglycemia, and prevent DM development. In the present study, we hypothesized that physical exercise training could modify the epigenetic patterns of women with poor glycemic control.Methods48 post-menopause women aged 60.3 ± 4.5 years were divided according to their fasting blood glucose levels into two groups: Prediabetes Group, PG (n=24), and Normal Glucose Group, NGG (n=24). All participants performed 14 weeks of physical exercise three times a week. The Infinium Methylation EPIC BeadChip measured the participants’ Different Methylated Regions (DMRs).ResultsBefore the intervention, the PG group had 12 DMRs compared to NGG. After the intervention, five DMRs remained different. Interestingly, when comparing the PG group before and after training, 118 DMRs were found. The enrichment analysis revealed that the genes were related to different biological functions such as energy metabolism, cell differentiation, and tumor suppression.ConclusionPhysical exercise is a relevant alternative in treating hyperglycemia and preventing DM in post-menopause women with poor glycemic control.

Map of epigenetic age acceleration: a worldwide meta-analysis

“…Brazil has an Aggregated Sign of <EAA> value of -4 (there are 4 more epigenetic estimates showing decelerated aging than epigenetic estimates showing accelerated aging). For this country, there is only one dataset (45 samples, 50-70 years old) with only women in menopause, in good physical shape (exercising regularly), healthy, non-smokers, not drinking coffee before blood donation, with normal glucose levels [57]. It is worth concluding that a dataset of 45 very healthy women is not representative enough for the entire Brazilian population.…”

The Heterogeneity of Post-Menopausal Disease Risk: Could the Basis for Why Only Subsets of Females Are Affected Be Due to a Reversible Epigenetic Modification System Associated with Puberty, Menstrual Cycles, Pregnancy and Lactation, and, Ultimately, Menopause?

“…Finally, non-drug protocols that instead use exercise protocols, which have been shown to decrease risk for a variety of post-menopausal diseases (reviewed in [1,2,11]), have been reported to lead to alterations in epigenetic modifications in blood cells of post-menopausal females with risk for diabetes [165] or in a population of older females without Alzheimer's disease [166]. In the latter report, some specific genes became hypomethylated while others became hypermethylated, so the changes were not unidirectional.…”