Association Between the 25-Hydroxyvitamin D Status and Physical Performance in Healthy Recreational Athletes

Cornelia Zeitler, Robert Fritz, Gerhard Smekal and Cem Ekmekcioglu
Additional contact information
Cornelia Zeitler: Department of Environmental Health, Center for Public Health, Medical University of Vienna, Kinderspitalgasse 15, 1090 Vienna, Austria
Robert Fritz: Sportordination, Alser Straße 27/1/6, 1080 Vienna, Austria
Gerhard Smekal: Institute of Sport Sciences, University of Vienna, Auf der Schmelz 6a, 1150 Vienna, Austria
Cem Ekmekcioglu: Department of Environmental Health, Center for Public Health, Medical University of Vienna, Kinderspitalgasse 15, 1090 Vienna, Austria

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 12, 1-14

Abstract: Molecular and clinical studies have linked vitamin D (vitD) deficiency to several aspects of muscle performance. For this retrospective cross-sectional study data from 297 male (M) and 284 female (F) healthy recreational athletes were used to evaluate the prevalence of vitD deficiency in athletes living in Austria and to determine whether serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) correlates with maximal (P max ) and submaximal physical performance (P submax ) measured on a treadmill ergometer. The data were controlled for age, season, weekly training hours (WTH), body mass index (BMI) and smoking status. 96 M and 75 F had 25(OH)D levels ≤ 20 ng/mL. 25(OH)D levels showed seasonal variations, but no seasonal differences in P max and P submax were detected. M with 25(OH)D levels ≤ 20 ng/mL had significantly lower P submax ( p = 0.045) than those with normal levels. In F no significant differences in P max or P submax were detected. Stepwise multiple regression analysis including all covariates revealed significant correlations between 25(OH)D levels and P max (β = 0.138, p = 0.003) and P submax (β = 0.152, p = 0.002) in M. Interestingly, for F significant correlations between 25(OH)D and both P max and P submax disappeared after adding WTH to the model. In conclusion, our data suggest that 25(OH)D status is associated with physical performance especially in M, while in F, WTH and BMI seem to affect the correlation.

Keywords: vitamin D; maximal performance; submaximal performance; 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D); physical activity; treadmill ergometer; athlete (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/12/2724/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/12/2724/ (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:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:12:p:2724-:d:187453

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

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