The Effect of Competitive Nordic Skiing on Athlete Nasal Microbial Biodiversity

Methods

Summary

We measured the following biological markers to see how they compare.

Measures of stress

C-reactive protein is a measure of damage to the body at the molecular level (it binds damage associated molecular patterns (DAMPs). We measured this using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).

Secretory IgA is a measure of mucosal immune health (the ability of your bodies defenses to communicate with the surface of your nasal cavity).

Heart rate variability is a measure of sympathetic versus parasympathetic influence or how "stressed out" you feel. We measured this with a Bluetooth enabled HR monitor.

A RESTQ-SPORT questionnaire was used to measure the subjective feelings of the athletes.

Challenges

One of the biggest challenges of this project is trying to capture the "big picture" of what is occurring in the athletes mind/body. This approach makes the observational data less useful in establishing causality as one could with solid experimental data but has more "oomph" when it comes to deciding what areas study look the most promising to pursue.

Pre Analysis Plan

While most of the data will come in the form of set values, the microbial diversity data is a bit more complicated. We plan on analyzing the sequences of DNA that code for microbes 16s rRNA subunit of their ribosomes to calculate how diverse the populations are. This will be done using a python based program called Quantitative Insights Into Microbial Ecology (QIIME).