Assessing hair cortisol as new biomarker for athletic conditioning

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K12640
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Sports science
• Research Institution: University of Tsukuba
• Principal Investigator: SOYA Hideaki 筑波大学, 体育系, 教授 (50221346)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): OKAZAKI Kazunobu 大阪市立大学, 都市健康・スポーツ研究センター, 准教授 (70447754) ; OKAMOTO Masahiro 筑波大学, 体育系, 助教 (30726617)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 長期的ストレス / 毛髪コルチゾール / オーバートレーニング / 慢性疲労 / 酸素運搬能

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Overtraining is primarily related to chronic stress caused by sustained high load training and is often coupled with other stressors. However, a diagnostic tool that monitors chronic stress has yet to be developed. To address this issue, we focus on the hair cortisol concentrations (HCC) as a novel biomarker of chronic stress, and we investigate the effect of training on HCC a whole season in female runners and the relationships between HCC and oxygen transport ability. HCC, blood cortisol, hemoglobin concentrations (Hb) were measured once per month over a whole season together with recording training load. The HCC was measured in the most proximal 1cm of hair by using ELISA. The result showed that the significant effects of training load on HCC and the significant negative effect of HCC on Hb with ANCOVA. These results suggest that HCC may be a useful biomarker of chronic stress that caused by training, which may in turn be a possible diagnostic tool for detecting overtraining.

Free Research Field

運動生化学・スポーツ神経科学