Metabolomics Application in Exercise Metabolism Research: A Review Study

Metabolomics, is a comprehensive measure of small metabolites (<1500 Da), which has attracted enormous attention in the last two decades. Metabolomics, in particular investigates unique biochemical fingerprints left behind by specific cellular processes, which represent the metabolic status. Exercise metabolism researchers have started to use this method since 2007. Metabolomics has been used to study the metabolic response to exercise, supplementation and exercise, sport performance and exercise effects in clinical situation. The purpose of this study was to describe metabolomics and its application in exercise metabolism research and to review research literature (from 2007 to the end of 2018). To this end, to facilitate the analysis, Google Scholar and PubMed databases were searched without date restriction. 58 valid studies were identified and divided into 5 groups, as follows: Metabolic response to exercise (27 studies), exercise nutrition (15 studies), sport performance (7 studies), clinical exercise studies (7 studies) and compare athletes metabolome (2 studies). Due to its high capacity, metabolomics can provide a suitable approach for exercise metabolism studies. On the other hand, because metabolites are the end point of physiological pathways, they can provide more reliable and useful information.