〔Abstract〕 Objective To explore the effects of exercise therapy on pathological injury and expression of skeletal muscle forkhead box transcription factor O1(FOXO1) and glucose transporter 4(GLUT4) in diabetes rats induced by streptozotocin(STZ). Methods A total of 75 male Wistar rats were enrolled and 60 cases of them were randomly selected and made into diabetes model, and they were divided into model group, low-intensity, middle-intensity and high-intensity exercise groups.The remaining 15 rats were enrolled as healthy control group.HE-staining was applied to observe gastrocnemius muscle.The expression of cysteinyl aspartate specific proteinase-3(Caspase-3),cysteinyl aspartate specific proteinase-9(Caspase-9),FOXO1 and GLUT4 proteins was detected by Western blot.The levels of blood glucose, total cholesterol(TC), triglyceride(TG), high density lipoprotein-cholesterol(HDL) and low density lipoprotein-cholesterol(LDL) were detected by automatic biochemical analyzer. The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was applied to detect levels of interleukin-6(IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-α ( TNF-α) and interleukin-10( IL-10). The biochemical methods were applied to determine activity levels of superoxide dismutase( SOD),malondialdehyde( MDA) and lactate dehydrogenase( LDH) in tissue homogenate of aortic vessel. The expression levels of FOXO1 and GLUT4 mRNA were detected by RT-PCR. Results Compared with healthy control group,expression of Caspase-3,Caspase-9 and FOXO1 protein,expression levels of TC,TG,LDL,IL-6,TNF-α and FOXO1 mRNA,activity of LDH and MDA were increased in model group( P<0. 05),while expression of GLUT4 protein,expression levels of HDL,IL-10,SOD and GLUT4 mRNA were decreased( P<0. 05). Compared with model group,expression of Caspase-3,Caspase-9 and FOXO1 protein,expression levels of TC,TG,LDL,IL-6,TNF-α and FOXO1 mRNA,activity of LDH and MDA were decreased in all exercise groups( P<0. 05). And the above indexes were the lowest in medium-intensity exercise group,while GLUT4 protein expression,expression levels of HDL,IL-10,SOD and GLUT4 mRNA were increased( P<0. 05). And the above indexes were the highest in medium-intensity exercise group. Conclusion Exercise therapy can alleviate pathological injury of diabetes rats by increasing expression levels of skeletal muscle GLUT4 protein and mRNA,and decreasing expression levels of skeletal muscle FOXO1 protein and mRNA. The effect of middle-intensity exercise is the best.