Circulating lipids are lowered but pancreatic islet lipid metabolism and insulin secretion are unaltered in exercise-trained female rats

Deteriorating islet β-cell function is key in the progression of an impaired glucose tolerance state to overt type 2 diabetes (T2D), a transition that can be delayed by exercise. We have previously shown that trained rats are protected from heart ischemia-reperfusion injury in correlation with an increase in cardiac tissue fatty-acid oxidation. This trained metabolic phenotype, if induced in the islet, could also prevent β-cell failure in the pathogenesis of T2D. To assess the effect of training on islet lipid metabolism and insulin secretion, female Sprague-Dawley rats were exercised on a treadmill for 90 min/d, 4 d/week, for 10 weeks. Islet fatty-acid oxidation, the expression of key lipid metabolism genes, and glucose-stimulated insulin secretion were determined in freshly isolated islets from trained and sedentary control rats after a 48 h rest period from the last exercise. Although this moderate training reduced plasma glycerol, free fatty acids, and triglyceride levels by about 40%, consistent with reduced lipolysis from adipose tissue, it did not alter islet fatty-acid oxidation, nor the islet expression of key transcription factors and enzymes of lipid metabolism. The training also had no effect on glucose-stimulated insulin secretion or its amplification by free fatty acids. In summary, chronic exercise training did not cause an intrinsic change in islet lipid metabolism. Training did, however, substantially reduce the exposure of islets to exogenous lipid, thereby providing a potential mechanism by which exercise can prevent islet β-cell failure leading to T2D.