Original articles   

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2001 December;41(4):505-12

Copyright © 2002 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Lipid profile and redox status in high performance rhythmic female teenagers gymnasts

Guerra A., Rego C., Laires M. J. *, Castro E. M. B. **, Silva D., Monteiro C. *, Silva Z. ***, Lebre E. °, Bicho M. ***

From the Nutrition Unit, Department of Paediatrics, H. S. João, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal * Biochemistry Laboratory, Faculty of Human Motricity University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal ** Faculty of Chemistry, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal *** Genetic Laboratory, Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal ° Faculty of Sport Science and Physical Education, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

Back­ground. The aim of the ­present ­study is to eval­u­ate the lip­id pro­file and ­some param­e­ters of oxi-­redox stat­us in a ­group of teen­age ­female ath­letes. All gym­nasts of the Por­tu­guese Nation­al ­Team of Rhyth­mic (n=20) ­were includ­ed in the ­study. A ­group of ­untrained ­healthy ­female ado­les­cents, ­matched for age, was ­also includ­ed (n=28).
Meth­ods. Aux­ol­o­gy, nutri­tion­al stat­us and ­body com­po­si­tion ­were eval­u­at­ed as ­well as bio­log­i­cal param­e­ters, die­tary and train­ing hab­its. Sta­tis­tics includ­ed descrip­tive anal­y­sis, “t”-Stu­dent and ­Mann-Whit­ney for com­par­a­tive ­study, and Pear­son and Spear­man cor­re­la­tions, accord­ing to var­i­able dis­tri­bu­tion.
­Results. Chron­o­log­i­cal age was 14.3±1.7 and 14.6±1,7 ­years, respec­tive­ly for gym­nasts and ­untrained ado­les­cents. Gym­nasts ­showed low­er ­body ­mass ­index (p<0.001) and fat ­mass (p<0.001) and ­also a hypo­en­er­get­ic ­diet, ­with high­er sup­ply in pro­tein (p<0.05) and sat­u­rat­ed fat (p<0.01). Lip­id pro­file ­showed high­er HDL-cho­les­te­rol (p<0.01) and low­er apo B val­ues (p<0.001) in gym­nasts, com­pared to ­untrained. Red ­blood ­cell’s ­enzymes stud­ied ­were high­er for trans­mem­brane ­NADH reduc­tase of fer­ric­ya­nide (TMR), (p<0.01), methae­mog­lo­bin reduc­tase (MetH­bRed), (p<0.01), and low-molec­u­lar ­weight pro­tein tyro­sine phos­pha­tase (LMW-PTP), (p<0.0001) in ­untrained ado­les­cents. Sus­cep­ti­bil­ity of LDL to per­ox­i­da­tion (LDL-­TBARS) ­were high­er in gym­nasts (76.3±20.3 µM/l ver­sus 35±21.7 µM/l), (p<0.001). Cor­re­la­tions ­were pos­i­tive and sig­nif­i­cant in ­both gym­nasts and ­untrained, ­between LDL-­TBARS and LDL-cho­les­te­rol (r=0.674, p<0.01 and r=0.544, p<0.05 respec­tive­ly) and apo­lip­o­pro­tein B (r=0.721, p<0.001 and r=0.659, p<0.01, respec­tive­ly). LDL-­TBARS ­were neg­a­tive and sig­nif­i­ca­tive­ly cor­re­lat­ed to TMR (t=-0.608; p<0.01) ­only in gym­nasts.
Con­clu­sions. The ­authors con­clude ­that the prac­tice of ­intense phys­i­cal exer­cise in ryth­mic gym­nasts induc­es a com­pro­mise of nutri­tion­al stat­us and unbal­anced ­food hab­its. The inten­sive exer­cise ­also induc­es not ­only a pro­tec­tive lip­id pro­file, but ­also a high­er lip­id per­ox­i­da­tion. Fur­ther pros­pec­tive stud­ies are impor­tant to eval­u­ate the influ­ence of inten­sive train­ing on ath­ero­scler­o­sis devel­op­ment.