Association between Sugar Intake and an ECG Parameter: A Case Study on Young Athletes

Zoran Šarčević, Zorana Lužanin and Andreja Tepavčević ()
Additional contact information
Zoran Šarčević: Novi Sad Health Care Centre, Sports Medicine Centre, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia
Zorana Lužanin: Faculty of Sciences, University of Novi Sad, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia
Andreja Tepavčević: Faculty of Sciences, University of Novi Sad, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 22, 1-9

Abstract: In many recent studies, high sugar intake has been shown to have harmful effects on the cardiovascular system, especially in children. This study aimed to check the association between sugar intake and T-peak to T-end interval, an electrocardiogram (ECG) parameter associated with a higher risk of early afterdepolarizations and ventricular arrhythmias in young athletes. The study participants were 96 young athletes aged 7–15, 34 girls and 62 boys trained in various sports. ECGs were performed on all participants and analyzed for the duration of the period from the peak of the T-wave to the end of the T-wave. The data on years of training and training hours per week, type of sport, age, height, and weight were taken, as well as the child’s sugar intake per day. The cut-off was a minimum of 30 g of concentrated sugar in sweets or drinks. The group of children that consumed sugar had, on average, a significantly longer duration of the T-peak to T-end (TpTe) interval. There is an association between sugar intake and the duration of the T-peak to T-end (TpTe) interval. In our case study, it was demonstrated that the benefit of playing sports cannot compensate for the harm of overconsumption of sugar, so an important public health target would be to lower sugar intake in children’s diets (particularly in the diets of young athletes). It would be necessary to determine interventions and activities that would affect the reduction in sugar intake from early childhood. Aside from the fact that overconsumption of sugar is associated with human health issues, there are many environmental benefits of reducing sugar production and consumption.

Keywords: public health; sugar reduction policy; young athletes; sugar; ECG (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/22/14916/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/22/14916/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:22:p:14916-:d:969759

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().