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Download fileUpper respiratory tract symptoms and salivary immunoglobulin A of elite female gymnasts: a full year longitudinal field study
journal contribution
posted on 2020-06-30, 11:01 authored by Jasmien Dumortier, Nicolette BishopNicolette Bishop, Dirk Vogelaers, Jan Boone, Liesbeth Delesie, Els Tobback, An Mariman, Jan G. BourgoisThe aim of this study was to determine the frequency of upper respiratory tract symptoms (URS) in elite female gymnasts during a training season. In addition, we aimed to observe the extent to which salivary immunoglobulin A (sIgA) is associated with URS in these athletes, including potential effects of the season and timing of sample collection. Over one year, 18 elite female gymnasts completed URS and fatigue questionnaires weekly and provided 1 mL of saliva after a minimum 36 h of rest (morning or afternoon) to measure relative sIgA concentration (= mean absolute sIgA value of the week divided by the mean absolute sIgA value of the weeks without URS). Mean weekly URS and mean relative sIgA values per gymnast correlated negatively (r = -0.606, P = 0.022). Most URS were noted in the most fatigued gymnasts (7.4 ± 10.1 vs. 2.5 ± 5.6 (P < 0.001) for ‘normal’ and 2.1 ± 3.7 (P = 0.001) for ‘better than normal’ rested). In spring, relative sIgA was higher compared to autumn (112 ± 55 vs. 89 ± 41%, P < 0.001) and w inter (92 ± 35%, P = 0.001), while during summer, relative sIgA appeared higher compared to autumn (110 ± 55 vs. 89 ± 41%, P = 0.016). The interaction effect with timing of sample collection showed higher relative sIgA values in morning samples in spring and summer compared to afternoon samples, with the inverse observed in autumn and winter (F = 3.565, P = 0.014). During a gymnastics season, lower relative sIgA values were linked to higher susceptibility to URS in elite gymnasts. However, relative sIgA values were influenced by season and timing of sample collection and thus should be considered when interpreting sIgA data.
History
School
- Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences
Published in
Biology of SportVolume
37Issue
3Pages
285 - 293Publisher
Termedia PublishingVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Rights holder
© Institute of Sport, Warsaw, PolandPublisher statement
This is an open access article. It is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially, provided the original work is properly cited and states its license.Acceptance date
2020-05-17Publication date
2020-06-16Copyright date
2020ISSN
0860-021XeISSN
2083-1862Publisher version
Language
- en