Acute exercise in elite rugby players increases the circulating level of the cardiovascular biomarker GDF-15

Abstract

Background. Intense training can lead to a pathophysiological change in serum concentration of a variety of biomarkers. Traditional biomarkers of cardiac injury are very useful in monitoring CVD patients, but in healthy subjects or athletes they cannot be informative enough about the cardiovascular risk, because in these cases their serum levels do not increase over the pathological limit. Therefore novel cardiovascular biomarkers are required in order to allow a better monitoring of sport performance, prediction of overtraining and diagnosis of sport-related cardiac injuries. Growth differentiation factor-15 (GDF-15) is emerging as a powerful cardiovascular injury risk indicator. In this study we investigate the effect of intense physical training of on the circulating levels of GDF-15 in rugby professional players. Methods. Serum GDF-15, Erythropoietin, IL-6, the cardiovascular parameter ST-2, NT-proBNP and routine hematological parameters were measured in a group of 30 rugby players before and after a session of intense training. Results. While ST-2, IL-6 and hsCRP displayed no significant changes after intense training, NT-proBNP and GDF-15 showed a significant increase, even without reaching the pathological level. Discussion. The measure of GDF-15 in professional rugby players could be a useful tool to monitoring their cardiovascular status during training and competition session in order to prevent the onset of collateral cardiovascular adverse event due to the intense training and, in the case of cardiac injury, it could possibly allow a very early diagnosis at the beginning of the pathogenic process.

Key Words::

• GDF-15
• cardiovascular risk
• rugby
• intense training

Acknowledgements

We are indebted to the medical team and managers of the Italian Rugby National Team for the invaluable cooperation (RP is a member of the medical team). We also thank the Cedal laboratory (Gallarate, Italy) which provided hematological and clinical chemistry data. The authors would also acknowledge the Italian Ministero dell’ Istruzione, Università e Ricerca (MIUR) ed il Ministero della Salute for providing funds for this research project.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.