Effect of exhaustive exercise on human neutrophils in athletes

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate the effect of vitamin C intake following exhaustive aerobic training on Immunoglobulins A (IgA) and G (IgG) in a number of 24 wushu athletes. The study adopts an experimental design and a field study approach. The population of the study consisted of 62 wushu athletes in Oshnavieh County. From among the population, a number of 24 athletes were randomly selected as the participants and assigned into an experimental group taking vitamin C (N=12) or a control group without vitamin C (N=12). The experimental subjects took 500 mg vitamin C per day for five subsequent days while the control subjects received no vitamin supplement during the same period. Blood samples were taken from each group in three stages. The first blood samples were taken before the training was started (at rest). The second blood sampling was conducted on the experimental subjects following vitamin C intake and on the control subjects following the training protocol (after the Day 5). Then the subjects in either group took Bruce test to measure their peak aerobic power, which immediately followed by the third blood sampling. In every sampling stage, serum IgA, IgG and cortisol were measured in either group. The data was collected through a few instruments including Health Status and Profile Questionnaire, a height meter device, a weight scale, a treadmill, a pulse meter as well as ELISA kit to measure cortisol concentration, serum IgA and IgG. Results showed that vitamin C intake significantly affected serum IgA, IgG and cortisol in the experimental subjects (P≤0.05). Findings showed that vitamin C induced increases in IgA and IgG concentrations, which may in turn contribute to improved immune performance and decreased risk of infectious diseases. However, cortisol levels decreased in the experimental subjects considerably (P≤0.05). The results also revealed that vitamin C intake following exhaustive training helped improve some of the indices in the immune system (3). It is, therefore, recommended that elite athletes use dietary supplementation and antioxidant vitamins to reduce the risk of heavy training so that they may minimize the potential disorders in their immune performance and avoid infections.

Oxygen species and overuse tendinopathy in athletes

“…Exercise also stimulates immune responses [69,70,72,73], with increased leucocyte numbers, in particular granulocytes, generated with bouts of moderate exercise. Exhaustive exercise in crosscountry skiers produced neutrophil mobilization and increased ROS generation on subsequent stimulation [72].…”

Effect of Dietary Fat Intake and Exercise on Inflammatory Mediators of the Immune System in Sedentary Men and Women

“…In addition to their function in phagocytolysis and killing the pathological invaders, neutrophils have the ability to produce several mediators including LTB 4 [38,39], sICAM-1 [40] and IL-8 [41]. Although exercise has been shown to affect some of the neutrophils functions [42], it did not influence the release of LTB 4 , sICAM-1 and IL-8 by neutrophils stimulated with LPS in this study. We found that increased dietary fat intake (50% of calories) resulted in increased overall LTB 4 production and decreased post-exercise sICAM-1 production by neutrophils.…”

Effect of lemon verbena supplementation on muscular damage markers, proinflammatory cytokines release and neutrophils’ oxidative stress in chronic exercise

“…Several studies have shown that physical exercise promotes neutrophils activation through enzymatic activities such as MPO (Yamada et al 2000;Morozov et al 2003Morozov et al , 2006, which may lead into excessive ROS production. This enzyme is the main source for hypochlorous acid, which induces a transitory oxidative stress concomitant to the respiratory burst (Sureda et al 2005).…”

“…(Petersen et al 2001), activation of immunocompetent cell lines and neutrophil priming for acute phase response (Suzuki et al 1999). In addition, higher oxidized glutathione levels and lower antioxidant enzymes levels in neutrophils (Tauler et al 2002a), and the induction of acute phase proteins such as elastase or myeloperoxidase (MPO) are related to exhaustive exercise (Yamada et al 2000;Morozov et al 2003).…”