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. 2017 Aug 14:5:2050312117725643.
doi: 10.1177/2050312117725643. eCollection 2017.

Effects of combined treatment with fermented soybean (natto) intake and exercise on bone metabolism in ovariectomized rats

Michihiro Kawano  1 , Ichiro Itomine  1 , Masahiko Monma  2 , Kazumi Asakawa  3 , Atsushi Toyoda  4   5 , Yuji Miyaguchi  4   5
Affiliations

Effects of combined treatment with fermented soybean (natto) intake and exercise on bone metabolism in ovariectomized rats

Michihiro Kawano et al. SAGE Open Med. .

Abstract

Objectives: Using ovariectomized rats, we examined the influence of combined exercise tolerance and natto intake on the bone loss inhibitory effect.

Methods: We divided female Wistar rats into the following groups: Ovariectomy, Ovariectomy + Exercise, Ovariectomy + Natto Intake, Ovariectomy + Exercise + Natto Intake, and Pseudo-operative (Sham group). After conducting experiments on each group, we collected the tissues and performed morphological and molecular biological analyses.

Results: In comparison with the Ovariectomy group, only in the Ovariectomy + Exercise group was there a significant bone loss inhibitory effect in the femoral cancellous bone. Although there was a tendency toward this trend seen in the Natto Intake and Exercise + Natto Intake groups, these differences were not significant. The increase in messenger RNA expression levels of alkaline phosphatase (osteoblast marker) in the bone marrow caused by ovariectomy was suppressed by individual factors, and by those in combination. However, messenger RNA expression levels of estrogen receptor alpha in the bone marrow showed a decreasing tendency with each factor, and decreased significantly with the combination, similar to the Sham group.

Conclusion: This suggests that natto intake and exercise maintain bone mass by different molecular mechanisms and that these two factors do not simply act synergistically in combination to maintain bone mass.

Keywords: Fermented soybean (natto); bone density; exercise; isoflavone; ovariectomized rats.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interests: The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Cange in uterus weight due to ovariectomy (OVX).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Comparison of femoral bone density.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Alp1 mRNA expression levels in bone marrow.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
ER1 mRNA expression levels in bone marrow.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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