Morphological and functional changes in urinary bladder of multiparous female rats submitted to resistance exercise

Objective: investigate whether resistance exercise can induce morphological and functional alterations in urinary bladder (UB) in multiparous rats. Methods: we used 40 adults female Wistar rats of which 20 were nulliparous and 20 were multiparous submitted to different volumes of moderate resistance exercise (one, three or ten weeks). Animals were submitted to the functional evaluation of UB. At the end of the protocol, the UB was removed, weighed and stained with hematoxylin and eosin for structural evaluation, and picrosirius red for collagen fibers. Results: we observed that multiparity promoted increase in body mass, reduction in UB layers, decrease in volume densities of collagen fibers I and III. However, 10-weeks of training was able to reverse the negative effects of multiparity. Conclusion: the intervention of physical exercise in 10 weeks times seems to cause greater benefit in UB of multiparous animals by preventing morphofunctional changes that trigger lower urinary tract symptoms, such as urinary loss.