S-Acetyl Glutathione and Performance Recovery in Soccer

Summary

Soccer players display elevated inflammatory and oxidative stress markers combined with reduced soccer specific performance over a 72-hour period. However, in modern soccer, players participate very often in 2 or 3 matches within a week, with a recovery period of 72 hours between successive matches, that is insufficient to restore skeletal muscle homeostasis and performance. Of note, reduced glutathione (GSH) levels, a tripeptide consisting of the amino acids cysteine, glycine and glutamic acid, are substantially reduced during the 72-hour recovery period after a match because of the trauma-related acute inflammatory and oxidative stress response. GSH availability is a crucial regulator of cellular redox status, affecting numerous intracellular and physiological processes such as redox signalling, immunoregulation and muscle metabolism. Indeed, enhanced GSH availability following muscle damaging exercise has been shown to be beneficial for skeletal muscle and performance recovery by mitigating the inflammatory and oxidative stress response. Thus, the enhancement of GSH availability through dietary interventions would be a promising strategy to accelerate skeletal muscle and performance recovery following a soccer game. S-Acetyl Glutathione (SAG) is a glutathione precursor with enhanced absorption kinetics due to chemical S-acetylation of the thiol group on the cysteinyl amino acid of GSH and oral administration of SAG has been shown to be more effective in restoring intracellular glutathione levels compared to oral glutathione. The aim of this study is to (i) perform a pharmacokinetic assessment of 200 mg/day vs 500 mg/day of SAG during a 7-day supplementation period (pre-loading) and (ii) to establish the pharmacodynamic effect of the two dosages at 24, 48 and 72h following a 90-minute official soccer match.

Conditions

• Performance Recovery
• Exercise-induced Inflammation
• Exercise-induced Oxidative Stress

Interventions

DIETARY_SUPPLEMENT

200 mg S-Acetyl Glutathione

Participants will be supplemented daily with 200 mg of S-acetyl glutathione, orally, over the 11-day experimental period.

DIETARY_SUPPLEMENT

500 mg S-Acetyl Glutathione

Participants will be supplemented daily with 500 mg of S-acetyl glutathione, orally, over the 11-day experimental period.

DIETARY_SUPPLEMENT

Placebo Supplementation

Participants will be supplemented daily with placebo, orally, over the 11-day experimental period.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Lesaffre International

  collaborator INDUSTRY

• University of Thessaly

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Dimitrios Draganidis, PhD · University of Thessaly, Department of Physical Education and Sport Science

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

TRIPLE

Model

CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age

19 Years

Max Age

29 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2026-09-01

Primary Completion

2026-12-20

Completion

2027-01-20

Countries

• Greece

Study Locations