Profiling of urinary testosterone and luteinizing hormone in exercise-stressed male athletes, using gas chromatography mass spectrometry and enzyme immunoassay techniques

Knowledge of the effects of episodic or short-term exercise-stress on endogenous testosterone and luteinizing hormone levels still remains fragmentary and inconclusive. In this study, an approach based on the absolute concentrations of urinary total testosterone (T), luteinizing hormone (LH) and the T/LH concentration ratios, was used to profile short-term exercise-stress responses in healthy drug-free male athletes. Testosterone and luteinizing hormone concentrations were measured using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and microparticle enzyme immunoassay (MEIA) techniques, respectively. Stress profiles derived from exercise-stress at VO(2)max, 68.1% VO(2)max and 51.6% VO(2)max were plotted using the concentrations of T, LH and the ratios of T/LH found under non-stressed and stressed conditions. Significant changes in LH concentrations (p<0.005) and T/LH ratios (p<0.005) levels were observed between the pre-stress and post-exercise conditions during acute exercise-stress at VO(2)max but the T concentration did not show any marked change relative to the non-stressed condition. Whilst exercise-stress appeared to reduce the change in T concentrations between the pre- and post-exercise states compared to that in the non-stressed control condition, the change in LH concentrations showed a moderate increase at submaximal oxygen uptake values. The stress profiles derived from this study facilitated an assessment of the relationship between the endogenous T, LH and T/LH ratio stress-responses over a short period of applied exercise-stress.