IMMUNOLOGICAL STATUS OF COMPETITIVE FOOTBALL PLAYERS DURING THE TRAINING SEASON

We investigated possible immunological changes in 15 professional foot ball players before, during and after the sports season. We studied th e leucocyte count as well as different functions such as T-lymphocyte proliferation, NK activity, chemotaxis and phagocytosis of neutrophils . Training and competitions did not produce any change in the total nu mber of leucocytes but increased neutrophil counts and decreased T4 ly mphocyte counts. We also observed a slight decrease of T-lymphocyte pr oliferation and a significant decrease of neutrophil functions. On the other hand, training and competitions did not induce significant chan ges in the number of NK cells nor in the total NK cytotoxic activity. The different change observed tended to normalize after the sports sea son. Our results suggest a predominant neutrophil function depression in football players during a training season which could partly explai n the susceptibility of elite athletes to infections.