A targeted metabolic analysis of football players and its association to player load: Comparison between women and men profiles

Abstract

Professional athletes undertake a variety of training programs to enhance their physical performance, technical-tactical skills, while protecting their health and well-being. Regular exercise induces widespread changes in the whole body in an extremely complex network of signaling, and evidence indicates that phenotypical sex differences influence the physiological adaptations to player load of professional athletes. Despite that there remains an underrepresentation of women in clinical studies in sports, including football. The objectives of this study were twofold: to study the association between the external load (EPTS) and urinary metabolites as a surrogate of the adaptation to training, and to assess the effect of sex on the physiological adaptations to player load in professional football players. Targeted metabolic analysis of aminoacids, and tryptophan and phenylalanine metabolites detected progressive changes in the urinary metabolome associated with the external training load in men and women’s football teams. Overrepresentation analysis and multivariate analysis of metabolic data showed significant differences of the effect of training on the metabolic profiles in the men and women teams analyzed. Collectively, our results demonstrate that the development of metabolic models of adaptation in professional football players can benefit from the separate analysis of women and men teams, providing more accurate insights into how adaptation to the external load is related to changes in the metabolic phenotypes. Furthermore, results support the use of metabolomics to understand changes in specific metabolic pathways provoked by the training process.

Mass Sportrometry: An annual look back at applications of mass spectrometry in sport and exercise science

“…Nonetheless, the authors claim the application of a multi‐metabolite profiling panel to be of use for investigating training load in runners. This wideband targeted approach was also identified in six additional studies over the past year 25,26,28,40,52,53 …”

“…This wideband targeted approach was also identified in six additional studies over the past year. 25,26,28,40,52,53 In 2022, 18 studies used a traditional non-targeted metabolomics assay. 18,24,30,[83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97] Perhaps the most thought-provoking exercise metabolomics publication from 2022 came from the Long Lab at Stanford University and was published in Nature.…”

“…In 2022, targeted analyses were the most commonly applied approach for MS‐based research in SES, with 52 human participant studies published. These experiments were predominantly performed in plasma 6,16–35 or serum, 36–50 with other biosamples mediums utilized such as urine, 51–55 fecal matter, 56,57 breath gases, 58–63 red blood cells, 64 cerebrospinal fluid, 25 hair, 65 and whole blood via microsampling 66 . This excludes the use of IR and elemental MS to target specific isotope/elemental signatures, which are discussed individually within section 3.5.…”

“…(B) PLS regression vectors (left) and variable importance in projection (VIP) scores (right) demonstrating a lack of correlation between female and male players. Reproduced with permission from Rodas et al 52 . (Copyright 2022 Rodas, Ferrer, Reche, Sanjuan‐Herráez, McCall and Quintás, CC‐BY).…”

“…In 2022, targeted analyses were the most commonly applied approach for MS-based research in SES, with 52 human participant studies published. These experiments were predominantly performed in plasma 6,[16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35] or serum, [36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50] with other biosamples mediums utilized such as urine, [51][52][53][54][55] fecal matter, 56,57 breath gases, [58][59][60][61][62][63] red blood cells, …”