The impact of exhaustive exercise on metabolic profiles in young men: a metabolomics approach

Abstract

Background: Exercise-induced fatigue leads to reduction in the ability exert physical performance. Prolonged and intensive exercise stimulates several metabolic pathways to produce energy. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the impact of exhaustive exercise on metabolomic pathways. Methods: Nine young recreationally active men were recruited to this study. Participants performed step incremental maximal exercise until maximum exhaustion. Saliva samples were collected pre- and post-exercise (immediately after exercise cessation) using a salimetric oral swab, and salivary metabolites were analyzed using capillary electrophoresis and time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Results: Two hundred ten metabolites were detected, representing different clustering principle component structures between pre- and post-exercise. Orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis identified 29 metabolites with highly related variable importance for projection score and 16 metabolites significantly increased after exercise. Furthermore, increase in cyclohexylamine was positively correlated with an increase in fatigue on a visual analog scale. Conclusion: The present study demonstrated that exhaustive exercise changed the saliva metabolomic pathways related to energy production including glycolysis, lipolysis, amino acid metabolism, amines, and ketone bodies.