Cortisol levels and pre-post changes in plasmatic uric acid strongly correlated with cognitive anxiety (r=0.766, p=0.002) and somatic anxiety (r=0.804, p<0.001) in novice combat athletes.
Observational
Do plasma uric acid and cortisol levels correlate with pre-competition anxiety in novice combat athletes?
This study provides the first evidence of strong correlations between plasma uric acid, cortisol levels, and pre-competition anxiety in novice combat athletes.
Effect estimate: Pearson's r = 0.766 and r = 0.804
p-value: p=0.002 and <0.001
Pre-competition anxiety is very prevalent in novice athletes, causing stress and drastic decreases in their performances. Cortisol plays a central role in the psychosomatic responses to stress and also in the physiology of strenuous exercise. Growing evidence links uric acid, an endogenous antioxidant, with oxidative stress and anxiety, as observed in many depressive-related disorders. We here compared anxiety inventory scores (BAI and CSAI-2), cortisol and biomarkers of oxidative stress in the plasma of novice combat athletes (white and blue belts) before and after their first official national competition, when levels of stress are presumably high. Although the novice fighters did not reveal high indexes of anxiety on questionnaires, significant correlations were confirmed between cortisol and cognitive anxiety (Pearson’s r = 0.766, p-value = 0.002, and a ‘strong’ Bayesian inference; BF10 = 22.17) and between pre-post changes of plasmatic uric acid and somatic anxiety (r = 0.804, p < 0.001, and ‘very strong’ inference; BF10 = 46.52). To our knowledge, this is the first study to report such strong correlations between uric acid and pre-competition anxiety in novice combat athletes. The cause-consequence association between these indexes cannot be directly inferred here, although the interplay between uric acid and anxiety deserves further investigation.
Oliveira et al. (Tue,) conducted a observational in Pre-competition anxiety. First official national competition (pre-competition stress) was evaluated on Correlation between cortisol and cognitive anxiety, and between pre-post changes of plasmatic uric acid and somatic anxiety (Pearson's r = 0.766 and r = 0.804, p=0.002 and <0.001). Cortisol levels and pre-post changes in plasmatic uric acid strongly correlated with cognitive anxiety (r=0.766, p=0.002) and somatic anxiety (r=0.804, p<0.001) in novice combat athletes.