Investigation of Oxidative Stress Levels of Male Football Players

Abstract

Introduction and Aim: While severe acute exercise increases the production of free radicals in skeletal muscles, regular and continuous exercise strengthens the antioxidant defence mechanism. Consequently, it was aimed to compare the oxidative stress levels of the male football players who regularly train in our study with the healthy control group who do not exercise regularly and to evaluate the effect of doing regular football training on the oxidant-antioxidant system.

Material and Method: A total of 59 people consisting of 29 football players of 11 Nisan Football Club in Turkey Football Federation Regional Amateur League (BAL) who train regularly and 30 healthy and volunteer control group who are students at Harran University, Faculty of Medicine and whose ages and body mass index are similar to the each other participated in the study. Total Oxidant Level (TOS), Total Antioxidant Level (TAS), Advanced Protein Oxidation Products (AOPP) and Oxidative Stress Indexes (OSI) of the participants were studied. Mann-Whitney U test and Student-t Test were used for data analysis and p <0.05 was considered significant.

Findings: At the end of the study, no statistically significant difference was observed in the TOS, TAS, AOPP and OSI levels between the football players who train regularly and the sedentary group (p> 0,01). However, TOS, OSI and AOPP values were found to be lower in favour of football players while TAS values are high in favour of football players.

Consequently; although the acute exercise in the literature increases oxidative stress, it is obvious that a healthy life and physical activity is necessary to avoid from chronic diseases. As a result of our study, it is observed that when exercises are performed in long-term, regularly and at appropriate intensities they strengthen the antioxidant defence system that suppresses oxidative stress.