(School of Physical Education,South China Normal University,Guangzhou 510006,China) Abstract: In order to probe into the effects of low-level laser therapy coupled with aerobic exercise on the bone structure and bone metabolism of perimenopausal rats, so as to provide a reference for osteoporosis prevention and treatment, the authors established a model of perimenopausal rats resulting from natural aging (14 months later, successful model establishment was verified via vaginal cytological observation and the E2 content in their serum), divided model successfully established rats randomly into 4 groups, namely, a control group, a pure exercise group, a laser therapy group and an exercise+laser group, each of which contained 6 rats, let the rats exercise on a downslope treadmill every other day (-5°, 15 m/min, 30 min), irradiated 810 nm semiconductor laser beams upon such 4 irradiation spots as the front, rear, inner side and outer side of the femoral neck of the rats for 30 seconds per spot every other day (50 mW, 11.94 J/cm²), measured the estrogen, bone mineral density (BMD), bone structure, bone biomechanical properties and bone metabolism related indexes of the rats 8 weeks later, and revealed the fol-lowing findings: 1) comparing the perimenopausal rats in the 3 intervention implemented groups with the rats in the control group, both femoral and general BMDs increased; exercise had a significant effect on increasing local (femoral) BMD, while exercise+laser therapy improved general BMD significantly; 2) aerobic exercise or low-level laser therapy can increase the number of bone trabeculas and improve their structure; exercise + laser can achieve an even better effect; the biomechanical properties of the rats in the exercise+laser group improved significantly; 3) both exercise and low-level laser therapy can increase the E2 content in the rats’ serum and improve their bone metabolic balance, in which exercise intervention had a better effect. As compared with running, low-level laser ir-radiation has a more significant effect on the general BMD of a perimenopausal body. Low-level laser irradiation can be used as one of effective measures for intervening osteoporosis suffered by middle-aged and old women. Ex-ercise coupled with low-level laser therapy works well on both local and general bone structures. Key words: sports medicine;osteoporosis;perimenopause;low-level laser therapy;aerobic exercise;rat |