Perfil metabolômico de mulheres e homens atletas de futebol: uma análise descritiva

Abstract

Professional athletes undergo a variety of training programs to improve their physical performance, technical-tactical skills, while also aiming to protect their health and well-being. Regular exercise induces widespread changes across the body through an extremely complex signaling network, and evidence suggests that genotypic and phenotypic differences related to biological sex influence the physiological adaptations to the load of professional athletes. However, to further complicate the interpretation of data in such comparisons, there is still an underrepresentation of women in clinical sports studies involving professional athletes, including football. The aim of this study is to characterize and describe the differences in the metabolomic profile between female and male athletes, as well as to describe the changes in the metabolomic profile related to the pre-game state in football throughout an equivalent phase of the championship. To achieve this, a descriptive observational longitudinal study was conducted, with a non-probabilistic convenience sample comprising 49 athletes (18 women and 31 men). The athletes were grouped by biological sex, and their metabolomic profiles, determined from urine samples at baseline and before five scheduled matches for their respective championships over a period of two months, were compared. A total of 39 metabolites were found and identified for both biological sexes. The metabolomic profiles were compared using Orthogonal Projection to Latent Structures Discriminant Analysis (OPLS-DA) and Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA). The OPLS-DA analysis showed good separation between the groups at baseline, with metabolites such as methylguanidine, lactate, and hippurate acting as the major discriminants with the highest VIP values for the female group, while for the male group, the metabolites urea, TMAO, taurine, isobutyrate, methylamine, uracil, and dimethylamine exhibited the highest VIP scores. Throughout the season, longitudinal cuts also differentiated, with the most significant factors responsible for separating the male and female groups during the entire period being urea, isobutyrate, dimethylamine, tyrosine, TMAO, taurine, 2-hydroxyisobutyrate, alanine, 4-hydroxyphenylacetic acid, transaconitate, trimethylamine, dimethylsulfone, and methylguanidine. When analyzing the metabolomic profiles of male and female athletes over the course of a football season, it was observed that, although both sexes showed significant changes, women exhibited greater variability in their metabolomic profiles. These metabolites reflect not only the body’s physiological responses to exercise but also the complex interactions between biological factors such as energy metabolism and hormonal regulation, which are more pronounced in females. Our study demonstrated that the greater variability observed in women suggests that, to optimize training and performance, it is essential for training protocols and recovery strategies to be personalized, taking into account sex differences and their respective biological responses to exercise stimuli. This type of analysis can help refine training approaches, maximizing performance and minimizing the risk of injury, highlighting the importance of not neglecting the sex factor when designing training programs for professional athletes.