Identification of Metabolites in Urine of Physical Exercise Practitioners by Raman Spectroscopy

In this work, dispersive Raman spectroscopy has been employed as a rapid and nondestructive technique to detect the metabolites in urine of physical exercise practitioners before and after exercise. For so, urine samples from 14 men were obtained before and immediately after physical activities and submitted to Raman spectroscopy (830 nm excitation, 250 mW laser power, 20 s integration time). The Raman spectra of urine showed peaks related to urea, creatinine and phosphate. These metabolic biomarkers presented peaks with different intensities in the urine after exercises compared to before, measured by the intensity of selected peaks the Raman spectra, which means different concentrations after training. These peaks presented different intensity values for each subject before physical activity, also behaving differently compared to the post-training: some subjects presented increase while others decrease the intensity. Raman spectroscopy may allow the development of a rapid and non-destructive test for metabolic evaluation of the physical training in active subjects using urine samples, allowing nutrition adjustment with the sport’s performance.