Plasma Amino Acids and Acylcarnitines Are Associated with the Female but Not Male Adolescent Swimmer’s Performance: An Integration between Mass Spectrometry and Complex Network Approaches

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Adolescent swimmers perform a lot of physical training with the aim of improving their performance in the sport. To achieve this goal, their diet must be adequate. In this scenario, studies have suggested that amino acids and acylcarnitines can improve the physical performance of athletes. However, we still do not have information as to whether the same occurs for adolescent swimmers. Thus, we compared amino acids and acylcarnitines present in the blood of adolescent swimmers of both sexes. We also correlated these substances with the performance of athletes. Our results showed that among amino acids and acylcarnitines, only tyrosine was lower in female adolescent swimmers when compared to male athletes. Additionally, significant associations between the female swimmers with tyrosine were observed. Future studies are necessary to understand this relationship, offering new possibilities for nutrition applied to the performance of adolescent swimmers. ABSTRACT: The main aim of this study was to compare the performance over different distances, the critical velocity (CV), and plasma acylcarnitines/amino acids of male and female adolescent swimmers. Moreover, we applied the complex network approach to identify which molecules are associated with athletes’ performances. On the first day under a controlled environment, blood samples were collected after 12 h of overnight fasting. Performance trials (100, 200, 400, and 800-m) were randomly performed in the subsequent four days in a swimming pool, and CV was determined by linear distance versus time mathematical function. Metabolomic analyses were carried out on a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer performing electrospray ionization in the positive ionization mode. No difference was observed between the performance of male and female swimmers. Except for 200-m distance (p = 0.08), plasma tyrosine was positively and significantly associated with the female times during the trials (100-m, p = 0.04; 400-m, p = 0.04; 800-m, p = 0.02), and inversely associated with the CV (p = 0.02). The complex network approach showed that glycine (0.406), glutamine (0.400), arginine (0.335), free carnitine (0.355), tryptophan (0.289), and histidine (0.271) were the most influential nodes to reach tyrosine. These results revealed a thread that must be explored in further randomized/controlled designs, improving the knowledge surrounding nutrition and the performance of adolescent swimmers.