The Intervention Effects of Acupuncture on Fatigue Induced by Exhaustive Physical Exercises: A Metabolomics Investigation.

Haifeng Ma,Xia Liu,Naixia Zhang,Ying Wu

doi:10.1155/2015/508302

Abstract

In this study, the antifatigue effects of acupuncture had been investigated at the metabolic level on the young male athletes with exhaustive physical exercises. After a series of exhaustive physical exercises and a short-term rest, the athletes either were treated with needling acupuncture on selected acupoints (TA group) or enjoyed an extended rest (TR group). NMR-based metabolomics analysis was then applied to depict the metabolic profiles of urine samples, which were collected from the athletes at three time points including the time before exercises, the time before and after the treatment of acupuncture, or taking the extended rest. The results from multivariate statistical analysis indicated that the recoveries of disturbed metabolites in the athletes treated with acupuncture were significantly faster than in those only taking rest. After the treatment with acupuncture, the levels of distinguished metabolites, 2-hydroxybutyrate, 3-hydroxyisovalerate, lactate, pyruvate, citrate, dimethylglycine, choline, glycine, hippurate, and hypoxanthine were recovered at an accelerated speed in the TA group in comparison with the TR group. The above-mentioned results indicated that the acupuncture treatment ameliorated fatigue by backregulating the perturbed energy metabolism, choline metabolism, and attenuating the ROS-induced stress at an accelerated speed, which demonstrated that acupuncture could serve as an alternative fatigue-relieving approach.

Highlights

Fatigue is a pathological and/or physiological symptom associated with either chronic debilitating diseases [1,2,3] or abnormal psychological conditions [4], being prevalent in people with exhaustive physical exercises [5, 6] and/or intensive labor works
A key component of traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, shows strong antifatigue effects on mammals indicated by an increasing amount of data [14,15,16]
NMR spectra of urine samples were dominated by numerous signals from amino acids, carboxylic acids (2-hydroxyisovalerate, 2hydroxybutyrate, isocaproate, 2-aminobutyrate, isobutyrate, 3-aminoisobutyrate, 3-hydroxyisovalerate, pyruvate, succinate, citrate, fumarate, formate, and lactate), methylamine metabolites (2-dimethylamine, trimethylamine, trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), methylguanidine, and dimethylglycine), the nitrogen containing heterocycle molecules (Nmethylnicotinamide (NMN), trigonelline (TRG), hypoxanthine (Hyx), and creatinine), N-acetyl-glycoprotein, taurine, hippurate, and so on

Summary

Introduction

Fatigue is a pathological and/or physiological symptom associated with either chronic debilitating diseases [1,2,3] or abnormal psychological conditions [4], being prevalent in people with exhaustive physical exercises [5, 6] and/or intensive labor works. The relief of fatigue induced by pathological conditions or nonpathological exercises will either support the treatments of related human diseases or help to improve performances. A key component of traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, shows strong antifatigue effects on mammals indicated by an increasing amount of data [14,15,16]

Methods

Results

Conclusion