Relationship between Anxiety and Interleukin 10 in Female Soccer Players with and Without Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS)

To investigate the level of anxiety and its relationship with interleukin (IL)-10 (anti inflammatory cytokine that modulates mood swings) in a group of female soccer players. Fifty-two eumenorrheic soccer players were evaluated (age 19.8 ± 4.7 years). The presence of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and phases of the menstrual cycle were determined by a daily symptom report (DSR) kept for 3 consecutive months. The concentration of cytokine IL-10 was determined from urine samples collected at four moments: at the follicular and luteal phases of the menstrual cycle, and before (pre) and after (post) the simulated game, and it was quantified by flow cytometry (Luminex xMAP - EMD Millipore, Billerica, MA, USA). The level of anxiety was determined through the BAI anxiety questionnaire answered by all athletes at the same time of the urine collection. The Student -test, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Pearson correlation with significance level at 5% were used for data analysis. We showed that the prevalence of PMS among female soccer players is similar to that reported in the literature. In addition, we showed that the group with PMS has a higher level of anxiety compared with group without PMS ( = 0.002). Interleukin-10 analysis in players without PMS revealed that there was a significant decrease in the level of this cytokine before the game during the luteal phase when compared with the follicular phase (