Effect of diet and diet combined with chronic aerobic exercise on chemerin plasma concentrations and adipose tissue in obese women.

OBJECTIVE: Chemerin concentrations are elevated in obesity and associated with inflammation and insulin resistance. Exercise improves insulin sensitivity, which may be facilitated by changes in chemerin. We explored the effects of 24 -week aerobic exercise program, diet and both combined on serum and abdominal adipose tissue (AT) chemerin, and adiponectin concentrations in obese women. METHODS: Thirty volunteers participated in a 24-week intervention whereby the women were randomly categorised into three groups: 1) exercise (EX), 2) diet (DI) and 3) exercise and diet group (EXD). Blood samples were taken before and after 12-week and 24-week of the intervention. Adipose Tissue (AT) biopsies were gathered only at baseline and at the end of the experiment. RESULTS: We found increases in VO2max in EXD (21.8 and 39.5%, p < 0.05) and in the EX group (18.1 and 41%, p < 0.05) after the 12 and 24-week training, respectively. Chemerin circulating levels were reduced in EXD and DI groups, after 24-week training program (p < 0.01). HOMA-R decreased only in the EXD group (p < 0.05). However, circulating adiponectin increased in both EXD and DI groups after 24-week training (p < 0.01). After 6 months training, AT biopsies showed decreases in chemerin levels in EXD and DI groups (p < 0.01). No changes in AT biopsies were observed in EX group. Nevertheless, adiponectin increased (p < 0.05) in AT. CONCLUSION: Aerobic training and diet, whether applied exclusively or combined have an impact on circulating or AT levels of adiponectin and chemerin in to the exclusion of the EX group. Therefore The 24-week training program and diet used in this study was very effective for producing significant benefits to body composition, insulin resistance and lipids profile, as well as lowering chemerin levels in these obese women. Therefore, our data suggests that chemerin serum concentrations are associated with insulin resistance.