[Selenium determination in blood plasma samples of high performance athletes]

Cooperating with the department "Sport- und Leistungsmedizin" of the university hospital of Freiburg/Brsg. we investigated the problem whether endurance stress leads to a significant change in the selenium blood concentration of athletes. We took blood samples of 13 test persons (11 men, 2 women) before, immediately after and 2 hours following a marathon course. The analyses of the concentration of selenium in plasma were performed by atomic absorption spectrometry AAS (molybdenum-coated graphite tube technique with L'vov platform as well as matrix modification with nickel nitrate in order to thermally stabilize the selenium). The selenium level of the plasma samples ranged between 41 and 153 micrograms/L. Our experiments have shown that running a marathon course does not lead to significant changes in the standard selenium plasma concentrations of the athletes.