MOSCOW, April 11 SFU scientists have developed a saliva biotesting method, which, in their opinion, will help to quickly determine the state of an athlete's body during training. The results of the study were published in the journal Sensors.
To monitor the condition of an athlete's body during training, sports medicine specialists measure the level of lactate in his blood. However, taking blood for analysis during a workout is inconvenient and creates stress for the body, scientists at the Siberian Federal University (SFU) say. They proposed to monitor the training process by analyzing saliva.
Non-invasive, that is, not associated with penetration into the body, methods of monitoring the training load can revolutionize the monitoring of sports results, said Galina Zhukova, a researcher at the Bioluminescence Laboratory of the Siberian Federal University.
“Saliva can be used to diagnose the state of an athlete’s body during the training process «It was previously shown that the lactate content in blood and saliva has a good correlation. Therefore, we set the task of developing analytical systems that can easily and quickly determine the lactate content in saliva,» Zhukova said.
One such analytical system could be developed based on measuring bioluminescence, the level of bacterial enzymes that glow in the presence of saliva samples before and during exercise, she says. The method of bioluminescent inhibition is an original development by Valentina Kratasyuk, Head of the Department of Biophysics, Institute of Biophysics and Biotechnology, Siberian Federal University.
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SibFU scientists conducted experiments with skiers and found that a lactate-specific bioluminescent enzyme system can be used for non-invasive monitoring of the training process.
«Measuring lactate concentration in saliva samples does not require special skills. An athlete receives a conclusion about his condition within two minutes, while the analysis of similar methods takes 10 or more minutes,” explained Galina Zhukova.
In the future, scientists plan to create a user-friendly biosensor and a program for it based on the developed methodology. In their opinion, it can become a popular analytical tool for sports medicine, the advantages of which include portability, speed, non-invasiveness and the ability to perform diagnostics during the training process.
The study was conducted as part of a strategic project of SibFU Gastronomic RnD Park, implemented under the program «Priority-2030».