Indeed, contractile activity is known to cause an increase in ROS generation in muscle, but the factors influencing the magnitude of this response include also the nature and the duration of the contractile activity. Thus, we can speculate that our exercise condition was not able to induce a significant increase in free radicals production. On the other hand, the Pyrazofurin investigated physical activity resulted in a significant increase in the serum antioxidant capacity, suggesting that the pathways that generate free radicals and those stimulating the antioxidant defence are in some way unrelated, as recently ML354 observed by other authors. Indeed, during moderate exercise, ROS act also as signals resulting in an upregulation of powerful antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase and catalase. In general, ROS/RNS generated during muscle contraction appear to have a physiological role in the adaptation to exercise, leading to the view that moderate exercise can be considered also an antioxidant with beneficial effects. Our results induce to postulate that the same conclusion can apply also to patients with type 1 DM. Main purpose of our study was the investigation of lipid peroxidation; accordingly, only a general test, i.e. the FORD assay, was used to obtain overall information about the anti-oxidant activity. In the future, to depict in greater detail the effects of a prolonged exercise, it will undoubtedly be of great interest to investigate the activity of specific enzymes. It should be pointed out here that patients with type 1 DM often require some extra carbohydrates before/during the effort to prevent an excessive fall of glycemia, even when they reduce the dose of injected insulin in anticipation of exercise. This extra amount of carbohydrates might be considered a caloric load that will be oxidized in mitochondria, resulting in a potential higher production of free radicals and thus constituting a confounding variable in the experimental setup of the present work. Nevertheless, an experimentation similar to the present one showed that the whole-body carbohydrates oxidation rate was not significantly different between patients with type 1 DM receiving appropriate amounts of fruit fudge and the control group, who was not given carbohydrates during the exercise.