Epidemiologic study of young soccer player's injuries in U12 to U20.

AIM: The aim of this study was an epidemiological report of the injuries to young soccer players from pretraining centres (12 to 15 years: U12-U15) and training centres (16 to 20 years: U16-U20). METHOD: Over 3 years, 618 injuries were analysed, concerning an average of 137 players per season (66 and 71 players in U12-U15 and U16-U20, respectively). The injuries were diagnosed by a physician. Numerous injury-related information were documented: player, player's age category, date of the injury, site of the injury, injured side, type of injury, circumstances: training vs. match and contact vs non-contact, number of days of play missed, severity, and player's position. RESULTS: The injury rate was higher in matches than in training sessions. Non-contact injuries accounted for 77.0% of the injuries for U12-U15 and 65.6% for U16-U20. The injuries were mainly to the thigh and hip in pretraining players (23.3% and 19.0%, respectively), and to the thigh and ankle in training players (32.1% and 20.3%, respectively). Contact injuries occurred more frequently during matches, presumably because of the higher intensity of play. The analysis of match injuries by position indicated that for U12-U15, during the matches, lateral defenders were injured most often: 30.4%. For U16-U20, axial midfielders and axial defenders were most subject to injuries during the matches (26.6% and 23.1%, respectively). CONCLUSION: These results may help to improve the programming of training. Between the first and third seasons of this study, a decrease in injuries during both matches and training sessions: from 174 to 107 (decrease of 38.5%).

Preconditioning of brain slices against hypoxia induced injury by a Gynostemma pentaphyllum extract--stimulation of anti-oxidative enzyme expression.

A short period of hypoxia/hypoglycaemia (oxygen and glucose deprivation, OGD) induced by perfusion with O(2)/glucose-free medium caused immediate loss and incomplete restoration of evoked field potentials in the CA1 region of transverse hippocampus slices. OGD-dependent decrease in evoked field potentials can be prevented by a proceeding short OGD event (preconditioning). We report about a study investigating the effect of an ethanolic Gynostemma pentaphyllum extract on evoked field potentials when administered before the OGD episode. Using this procedure, the extract completely protected the cells of the slices from functional injury. In an astroglia rich cell culture the ethanolic Gynostemma pentaphyllum extract caused within 48 h of cultivation increased protein and activity levels of the anti-oxidative enzymes manganese superoxide dismutase (Mn-SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx). Consequently, the cellular H(2)O(2) concentration remained at a low level. These data suggest that the Gynostemma pentaphyllum-mediated increase in antioxidative enzyme activities may contribute to the protection of transverse hippocampus slices from OGD induced functional injury. Our results demonstrate that the prophylactic administration of the ethanolic extract from Gynostemma pentaphyllum has a high potential to protect from ischemia/reperfusion injury.