Long‐term effects of adolescent sport experience, DRD2 and COMT genes, and their interaction on sport participation in adulthood

Abstract

Background:The present study investigated the joint impact of adolescent sport experience and dopamine-related genes (i.e., DRD2 and COMT genes) on sport participation in adulthood. Methods:Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) data, the hierarchical multivariable logistic regression models for predicting sport participation in wave 3 (around 20 years of age) and wave 4 (around 30 years of age) were conducted separately by gender (male and female) and gene (DRD2 and COMT genes).Results: Adolescent sport experience significantly interacted with the number of DRD2 A1 alleles and COMT Met alleles in affecting wave 3 sport participation among male adults. The interaction between adolescent sport experience and DRD2 gene significantly affected wave 4 sport participation in opposite direction to that affected wave 3 sport participation among male participants. Among female participants, there were no significant interaction effects between dopamine-related genes and adolescent sport experience on sport participation in both wave 3 and 4. Conclusions:Since adult sport participation is most likely to be influenced by the joint impact of environmental and genetic factors, it is important to consider gene-byenvironment interactions when designing policies or programs to promote adult sport participation.

Physical Activity Engagement Across Human Life Cycles: A Scoping Review

“…The majority of youths were found to be unable to meet the physical activity guidelines, and this decreases over time (Burns et al, 2021), frequent participation in play rather than social activities (Hsu et al, 2021), and team sports participation of youths have a positive impact to them (Shepherd et al, 2021). Meanwhile, sports participation peaked in late adolescence but decreased throughout adulthood (Lau et al, 2019;Lee et al, 2022), they also do not reach the recommended level of physical activity (Atakan et al, 2019), due to physiological alterations (Easterlin et al, 2019), limits occurred during adulthood (Hsu et al, 2021), and structural constraints (Kim et al, 2020). However, the study of Hsu et al ( 2021) evidently shows that both youth and adults engage in moderate to vigorous intensity aerobic activity.…”