Background: Obestatin and leptin are two important hormones in energy homeostasis that have been discovered in recent years. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of eight weeks of intense aerobic exercise on plasma levels of obestatin, leptin, insulin and growth hormones in male obese Sprague Dawley Rats.

Materials and Methods: In this exprimontal study 50 male rats, with the weight range of 20±320 were taken from the Animal Laboratory of Medical Sciences in Shiraz University, and were divided into two training groups: experimental and control. The exercise program consisted of 8 weeks of intense aerobic exercise, 5 sessions per week. The exercise started at a speed of 5 meters per minute and with a slope of zero degree for 15 minutes and the intensity progressively reached up to the speed of 25 m/m and the slope of 15 degrees for 75 minutes in the last week and ended. Blood samples were taken 24 hours after the last training session and were sent to the laboratory to measure the levels of obestatin, leptin, insulin and growth hormones. SPSS software and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Pearson correlation coefficient were used to assess the results.

Results: There was a significant reduction in plasma levels of obestatin (p=0.02), leptin (p=0.02), and insulin (p=0.03), while the results showed that no meaningful difference was observed in the amount of growth hormone between the control group and intense training group (p=0.07).

Conclusion: The results of the present study have shown that after sports activities leading to weight loss, the reduction of anti-hunger hormones (obestatin and leptin) is expected.