This article, via discussing various psychological manifestations among Chinese elite athletes, illustrates sociocultural “meridians” in Chinese elite sports including (a) “Whole-Nation system,” (b) Chinese culture, and (c) their interaction. We propose that the sociocultural characteristics be integrated in athletes’ psychological training and further discuss the aspects of (a) cultural inheri...

Asthma is the most frequent chronic disease among young adults, not least in the western societies, with an even higher frequency among elite athletes. Asthma consists of airway inflammation and smooth muscle contraction, normally treated with antiasthma therapy, some of which have side effects. n-3 LCPUFA in fish oil (FO) has antiinflammatory effects, and some studies have shown clinical effec...

The importance of sleep in providing psychophysiological recovery in elite athletes is often overlooked. In other populations (eg shift workers and adolescent students), sleep hygiene education may serve to acutely improve sleep indices. However, this is yet to be examined in an elite athlete setting. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to evaluate the effect of a sleep hygiene educatio...

The prevalence of airway dysfunction in elite swimmers is among the highest in elite athletes. The traditional view that swimmers naturally gravitate toward swimming because of preexisting respiratory disorders has been challenged. There is now sufficient evidence that the higher prevalence of bronchial tone disorders in elite swimmers is not the result of a natural selection bias. Rather, the ...

BACKGROUND In order to perform at top levels, elite athletes have to both protect and risk their health at the same time. Adolescent elite athletes have the additional challenge of coping with substantial physical, psychological and social transformations. The contradictory phenomenon of protecting and risking the adolescent athletes' health in sports challenges the development of health promot...

Serum insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) and procollagen type III peptide (P-III-P) have been proposed as indirect biomarkers of rhGH misuse in sports. The purpose of the present study was to investigate concentrations of these biomarkers in athletes at different levels of physical fitness and endurance exercise. Serum total IGF-I and P-III-P were measured in 96 elite athletes of various spor...

BACKGROUND P wave dispersion is an independent predictor of atrial fibrillation. P wave dispersion is associated with inhomogeneous and discontinuous propagation of sinus impulses. The purpose of this study was to investigate P wave dispersion and transthoracic echocardiographic findings in elite women basketball players. METHODS We recruited 27 well-trained woman athletes with a training his...

PURPOSE To determine the frequency of the ACTN3 R577X polymorphism (functional R allele and nonfunctional X allele) in a variety of African populations and to examine its influence on the success of elite East African endurance runners and West African sprinters. METHODS The R577X polymorphism was genotyped in 198 Ethiopian controls and 76 elite Ethiopian endurance athletes, 158 Kenyan contro...