Loss of Trace Elements not a Concern in Well-Hydrated Athletes

If you are a hard-training athlete you need more than "trace amounts" of trace elements, don't you? No, actually not. You may be somewhat disappointed now, but the expensive trace element supplement you just ordered might turn out to be a complete waste of money - at least, this is what the results of a recently published study by Carlos González-Haro et al. (González-Haro. 2010) suggest.

Figure 1: Changes in plasma trace element levels (Zn, Mn, Se and Co) for the different relative exercise intensities studied and the 7 min recovery period.

As figure 1 (above) shows, lactate concentrations constantly increased in the course of the 7 minutes after a cycloergometer test, where, after a warm-up of 10 min at 2.0 W kg⁻¹, workload had been increased by 0.5 W kg⁻¹ every 10 min until exhaustion. The trace mineral concentration, on the other hand, remained stable over the whole study period (exercise + recovery). This observation led the scientists to conclude ...

[...] in euhydrated well-trained endurance athletes no effects on plasma levels of Zn, Se, Mn and Co were observed either during medium duration exercise, at a full range of intensities (41–92%VO_2peak), or during a seven-minute recovery period. These subjects showed no deficiency in Zn or Se and probably were not deficient in Mn or Co either (though cutoff levels are not known).

So, if you have not opened your "high quality trace element" supplement yet, make use of your 14-days conversion right ;-)