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Effect of dehydroepiandrosterone administration on recovery from mix-type exercise training-induced muscle damage

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Abstract

This study aimed to determine the role of DHEA-S in coping against the exercise training mixing aerobic and resistance components. During 5-day successive exercise training, 16 young male participants (19.2 ± 1.2 years) received either a placebo (flour capsule) or DHEA (100 mg/day) in a double-blinded and placebo-controlled design. Oral DHEA supplementation significantly increased circulating DHEA-S by 2.5-fold, but a protracted drop (~35 %) was observed from Day 3 during training. In the Placebo group, only a minimal DHEA-S reduction (~17 %) was observed. Changes in testosterone followed a similar pattern as DHEA-S. Muscle soreness was elevated significantly on Day 2 for both groups to a similar extent. Lower muscle soreness was observed in the DHEA-supplemented group on Day 3 and Day 6. In the Placebo group, training increased circulating creatine kinase (CK) levels by approximately ninefold, while only a threefold increase was observed in the DHEA-supplemented group. This mix-type exercise training improved glucose tolerance in both groups, while lowering the insulin response to the glucose challenge, but no difference between treatments was observed. Our results suggest that DHEA-S may play a role in protecting skeletal muscle from exercise training-induced muscle damage.

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Acknowledgments

This study is supported in part by Taiwan Department of Health Clinical Trial and Research Center of Excellence (DOH100-TD-B-111-004). We appreciated all the subjects participating in this study.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Kinesiology and Health Education, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Yi-Hung Liao, John L. Ivy & Jeffrey R. Bernard

  2. Laboratory of Exercise Biochemistry, Taipei Physical Education College, No.101, Sec. 2, Jhongcheng Rd., Shihlin District, Taipei City 111, Taiwan

    Kun-Fu Liao, Chung-Yu Chen & Chia-Hua Kuo

  3. Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Taipei Veterans General Hospital and National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Chung-Lan Kao

  4. Graduate Institute of Basic Medical Science, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan

    Chih-Yang Huang

  5. Department of Health and Nutrition Biotechnology, Asia University, Taichung, Taiwan

    Chih-Yang Huang

  6. Department of Physical Education, National Hsinchu University of Education, Hsinchu City, Taiwan

    Wei-Hsiang Chang

  7. Department of Physical Therapy and Graduate Institute of Rehabilitation Science, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan

    Shin-Da Lee & Chia-Hua Kuo

  8. Department of Healthcare Administration, Asia University, Taichung, Taiwan

    Shin-Da Lee

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  1. Yi-Hung Liao
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  2. Kun-Fu Liao
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  7. John L. Ivy
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  8. Jeffrey R. Bernard
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  9. Shin-Da Lee
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  10. Chia-Hua Kuo
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chia-Hua Kuo.

Additional information

Communicated by William J. Kraemer.

S.-D. Lee and C.-H. Kuo are equally contributed to this work.

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Liao, YH., Liao, KF., Kao, CL. et al. Effect of dehydroepiandrosterone administration on recovery from mix-type exercise training-induced muscle damage. Eur J Appl Physiol 113, 99–107 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-012-2409-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-012-2409-6

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