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. 2020 Sep 9;17(18):6563.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph17186563.

Association between Trace Elements and Body Composition Parameters in Endurance Runners

Gema Barrientos  1 , Javier Alves  1 , Víctor Toro  2 , María Concepción Robles  2 , Diego Muñoz  2 , Marcos Maynar  2
Affiliations

Association between Trace Elements and Body Composition Parameters in Endurance Runners

Gema Barrientos et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the possible correlations between essential and toxic trace elements of plasma with several anthropometric and body composition parameters and performance in endurance runners. Sixty-five high-level middle and long-distance runners (21 ± 3 years; 1.77 ± 0.05 m; 64.97 ± 7.36 kg; VO2 max. 67.55 ± 4.11 mL/min/kg) participated in the present study. Abdominal, subscapular, iliac crest, triceps, front thigh and medial calf skinfold thicknesses and an incremental test until exhaustion were recorded. Body, fat, muscle and bone mass were estimated. Plasma trace elements were analyzed with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Correlations and simple linear regression were used to assess the relationship between trace elements and several variables. Different skinfolds, fat mass, muscle mass and bone mass correlated positively and negatively with trace elements such as copper, manganese, selenium, vanadium, zinc, lithium, rubidium, strontium, arsenic, beryllium and lead. Lithium was related with performance. In conclusion, endurance training causes changes in the body concentrations of several trace elements that trigger modifications in body composition that may be interesting, if confirmed in the future, for the control of metabolic diseases such as obesity.

Keywords: bone mass; fat mass; muscle mass; skinfolds; trace elements.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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