Abstract
Background and aims: Chronic hyperglycemia drives hepatic inflammation in diabetes largely via the Toll-Like Receptor 4 (TLR4)/Nuclear Factor Kappa B1 (NFKB1) axis. Although exercise and taurine each possess anti-inflammatory properties, their combined effects on this pathway are unknown. We investigated whether an 8-week combined exercise and taurine intervention, alone and in combination, downregulates hepatic TLR4 and NFKB1 mRNA expression in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats Methods: Fifty male Wistar rats (8 weeks old) were randomly assigned to five groups (n=10/group): healthy control (HC), diabetic control (DC), diabetic + taurine (DT; 100 mg/kg/day, i.p.), diabetic + exercise (DE), and diabetic + exercise + taurine (DET). Diabetes was induced by a single intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (STZ) (55 mg/kg). Following the 8-week intervention, hepatic TLR4 and NFKB1 mRNA expression levels were quantified by real-time PCR. Results: One-way ANOVA revealed significant group effects for TLR4 (η²=0.90, P<0.001) and NFKB1 (η²=0.85, P<0.001). All intervention groups showed significantly lower TLR4 expression compared with the DC group. The DET group exhibited lower TLR4 expression than either intervention alone. For NFKB1, taurine alone (DT) outperformed exercise alone (DE) (P=0.002). For NFKB1 expression, taurine supplementation alone produced the lowest values among the intervention groups. The addition of exercise to taurine did not confer any further reduction compared with taurine alone (P=0.007). Conclusion: Combined exercise training and taurine supplementation were associated with lower hepatic TLR4 expression, whereas taurine supplementation alone produced the greatest reduction in NFKB1 expression. These findings suggest that both interventions may contribute to attenuating diabetes-associated hepatic inflammation.