Exercise affects salivary biomarkers of creatine metabolism in healthy adults

Abstract

Background: We monitored changes in salivary creatine pre- and post-high-intensity exercise in young adults while also investigating the potential correlation between salivary and serum creatine levels.

Method: Saliva and serum samples were collected before and immediately after an incremental running-to-exhaustion treadmill test in fifteen young adults (mean age [23.9 ±2.9] years, eight females), with samples analyzed for guanidinoacetic acid, creatine, and creatinine using a liquid chromatography -tandem mass spectrometry method.

Results: Following exercise, there was a substantial elevation in salivary creatine levels from (17.5 ±14.2) μmol ·L-1 to (43.6 ±30.4) μmol ·L-1 (p < 0.001), coupled with a significant increase in salivary creatinine from (11.3 ±5.8) μmol ·L-1 to (17.0 ±9.3) μmol ·L-1 (p = 0.04). In contrast, serum creatine levels were unaffected by exercise (p = 0.80), while creatinine levels exhibited a strong tendency to decrease post-exercise (from [81.8 ±17.5] μmol ·L-1 to [73.1 ±11.6] μmol ·L-1; p = 0.06). A comparison of the slopes of the two regression lines (saliva vs. serum) revealed significant differences for both creatine (p = 0.01) and creatinine (p = 0.03).

Conclusions: The above findings suggest a potential difference in the dynamics of creatine metabolites in these two bodily fluids, both pre and post-exercise.

Keywords

Creatine metabolism / Exercise / Saliva / Serum

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Bogdan Andjelic: Writing - review & editing, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation. Tijana Lainovic: Writing - review & editing, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation. Nikola Todorovic: Writing - review & editing, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation. Jovana Panic: Writing -review & editing, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation. Milan Vranes: Writing - review & editing, Supervision, Project administration, Methodology, Investigation. Valdemar Stajer: Writing -review & editing, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition, Formal analysis. Sergej M. Ostojic: Writing - original draft, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization.

Ethical approval statement

Ethical clearance for conducting the study was obtained from the local Institutional Review Board at the University of Novi Sad (Approval #49-03-14/2023-1), with the research adhering to the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki. Informed consent was obtained from all participants.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare there are no competing interests.

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