Tuina enhances the effectiveness of treadmill running in promoting recovery from acute skeletal muscle injury / 中华物理医学与康复杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the effects of tuina, treadmill running or both on the expression of factors related to gastrocnemius muscle proteins after acute muscle injury and to explore the mechanisms involved.Methods:Thirty adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into a control group, a natural recovery group, a tuina group, a treadmill running group and a combined treatment group, each of 6. An impactor was used to induce an acute skeletal muscle injury in the right hind legs of all of the rats except those of the control group. One day after the successful modelling, the tuina, treadmill running and combined groups were given interventions as their name implied, 5 times a week for 3 weeks. The gait of rats in each group was analyzed and the number of times the rats fell into and striken by the electrical grid was counted. The injured muscles′ cross-sectional areas (CSAs) and the diameters of muscle fibers were observed using hematoxylin and eosin staining. The expression of mTOR, p-mTOR, p70S6K, p-p70S6K and smad2/3 protein were tested using western blotting. The relative expression of myostatin (MSTN) mRNA was measured using real-time quantitative polymerase chain reactions.Results:Compared with the natural recovery group, all the other groups fell into the electrical grid significantly less often. The average CSA and wet weight of the affected gastrocnemius had increased significantly in the tuina, treadmill running and combined treatment groups, with the average CSA increases in the treadmill running and combined treatment groups significantly greater compared with the tuina group. The average relative expression of mTOR, p-mTOR, p70S6K, and p-p70S6K in the other four groups increased significantly compared with the control group, while that of Smad2/3 and MSTN decreased significantly. Compared with the natural recovery group, the average increases in the other groups were significantly greater. Compared with the tuina group, the treadmill running and combined treatment groups showed significantly better improvements, on average.Conclusions:Tuina, treadmill running and their combination all can improve recovery from skeletal muscle trauma, at least in rats. However, treadmill running and combined treatment are more effect than tuina alone.