Background: Diabetes mellitus and its complications are a public health problem. Exercise is frequently recommended in the type І and type П diabetes mellitus and can improve glucose uptake by increasing insulin sensitivity and lowering body adiposity. Diabetic nephropathy has become the main cause of renal failure. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of regular exercise on diabetic nephropathy.

 Materials and methods: In this study, fifty-six 12-week rats weighted 200-300 gr were selected and assigned into two groups (treatment and control). Diabetes mellitus was induced by intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (50 mg/kg). The treatment group were kept in normal conditions of food and place with regular exercise (treadmill) for 12 weeks, 5 days in a week, an hour every day. In control group we prepared normal conditions (food and place) without any physical activity/regular exercise. After 12 weeks renal tissues were sampled in both groups and 5-6 micron tissue section were prepared through H&E staining method.

Results: Histopathological analysis of tissue section in control group demonstrated that glumerosclerosis, artheriolosclerosis, perivascular cuffing of mononuclear inflammatory cells, tubular cells nephrosis and hyaline cast in lumen of renal tubules and a little pathological changes in treatment group were observed. Mean deference of histopathological changes and proteinuria in two groups were significant.

 Conclusion: We demonstrated that regular exercise (treadmill) is able to reduce pathological changes and improve diabetic nephropathy disease in diabetic patients resulting in the reduction of HbA1c, oxidative stress, hyperglycemia, VLDL, expression of apoptosis regulatory