Effect of Acute L-Arginine Supplementation on Cardiac and Muscle Cell Damage Indices after Exhaustive Exercise Training in Young Karate Players

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of short-term L-arginine supplementation on lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), creatine kinase (CK) and troponin T (Tnt) enzymes levels after exhaustive exercise in young karate players.
In semi-experimental study, 18 young karate players randomly assigned in two supplement and placebo groups. Participants in supplement group consumed 3grams daily of L-arginine capsules for seven days, while the placebo group received the same amount of placebo. All subjects performed an exhaustive aerobic exercise after seven days supplementation. Venous blood samples were collected at four stages; 1: pre supplementation, 2: After the end of the supplementation period and pre exercise, 3: Immediately post exercise and 4: 24 hours after exercise. Data was analyzed by repeated measure ANOVA and Bonferroni post-hoc test at α ≤ 0.05.
The results of the study indicated that the increase of CK, was significantly higher (p In general, it can be concluded that short-term L-arginine supplementation can ameliorate the muscle cell damage induced to exhaustive exercise by prevention of the CK increase in young athletes.