Lipid Mediators in Exercise-Induced Inflammation: From Muscle Damage to Repair

Background: Exercise triggers a proportional inflammatory response that is crucial for muscle fiber repair and adaptation. However, excessive or chronic inflammation can delay recovery and increase injury risk, highlighting the importance of understanding the precise mechanisms governing the inflammatory cascade. Biomarkers such as creatine kinase and interleukins are commonly used to assess muscle damage and inflammation, respectively, but they possess significant limitations in specificity and sensitivity, potentially obscuring the complex temporal dynamics of inflammatory processes. Lipid mediators, which signal all inflammatory events with distinct roles in pro-inflammatory, anti-inflammatory, and pro-resolving phases, may offer a more comprehensive understanding of the inflammatory response to exercise. Methods: This targeted review synthesizes evidence from exercise immunology, lipidomics, and sports medicine literature to examine the role of lipid mediators in the inflammatory cascade following exercise. The limitations of current biomarkers are critically evaluated, and the theoretical potential of lipid mediators to provide more precise insights into inflammatory processes is explored. Evidence from studies investigating specialized pro-resolving mediators and their temporal dynamics is systematically reviewed. Results: The analysis reveals that conventional biomarkers provide only a partial picture of the inflammatory response to exercise, lacking the specificity to differentiate between pro-inflammatory and pro-resolving phases. Lipid mediators, including prostaglandins, leukotrienes, and specialized pro-resolving mediators, play distinct and sequential roles throughout the inflammatory cascade, from initiation to resolution. Their temporal dynamics offer potential for more precise monitoring of recovery status and identification of individuals at risk for prolonged or dysregulated inflammation. However, standardized protocols for measuring lipid mediators are currently lacking, and their temporal dynamics in relation to exercise-induced inflammation and recovery remain incompletely characterized. Conclusion: Lipid mediators hold significant promise for advancing understanding of exercise-induced inflammation and recovery processes. Future research should prioritize establishing standardized measurement protocols and characterizing temporal dynamics across different exercise modalities and populations to inform evidence-based recovery monitoring and intervention strategies for athletes.

کلیدواژه ها:

Lipid mediators ، Exercise ، Inflammation ، Recovery ، Specialized pro-resolving mediators ، Muscle damage