Relationship between ventilatory efficiency and salivary mitochondrial DNA copy number in aerobically trained adolescent athletes

Abstract

Introduction: It has been reported that endurance exercise training improves cardiorespiratory fitness levels (e.g., peak oxygen uptake: VO2peak) and mitochondrial function. On this matter, one study has shown that ventilation efficiency may be directly related to salivary mitochondrial DNA copy number (as an index of mitochondrial content) in healthy subjects with relatively low aerobic capacity (33 ml/kg/min VO2peak). However, the causal relationship for these indices in adolescent athletes is not yet clear.