Author(s): TURNER, J., BROWN, L., MACRAE, H., HELSEN, W., QAQAYA, N., ROLLO, I., Institution: NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY, Country: UNITED KINGDOM, Abstract-ID: 1670

INTRODUCTION:
Fruit and vegetable intake contributes to the essential macro- and micronutrients that underpin performance, recovery and overall health. Quantifying fruit and vegetable consumption in athletes remains challenging, as traditional dietary assessment methods are time-intensive, subjective and prone to error. Measurement of blood plasma carotenoid concentrations is considered the gold-standard for assessing fruit and vegetable intake. However, this method is invasive and often impractical in applied sport settings. The Veggie Meter® is an optical device that provides rapid, non-invasive measurements of skin carotenoid status, which has been shown to correlate with blood carotenoid concentrations (1,2,3). Male soccer referees represent a unique high-performance population with substantial physical and cognitive demands, yet objective assessment of their fruit and vegetable intake is limited. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate skin carotenoid status in male soccer referees.
METHODS:
Skin carotenoid score (SCS) was assessed in three groups of male soccer referees: Elite (ELT; n=23), First Category (FIR; n=23) and New Internationals (NEW; n=30). The index finger of the non-dominant hand was placed onto the Veggie Meter® lens under a spring-loaded cover. The finger remained under topical pressure for ~10 seconds before removing and re-inserting twice to obtain an arbitrary 0-800 SCS using reflective spectroscopy. Scores were categorised based on fruit and vegetable intake as previously described (4), anchored at 0-239 (severe shortage); 240-310 (shortage); 311-395 (low intake); 396-506 (good intake); >507 (excellent intake). Data were analysed using Welch’s one-way ANOVA and reported as mean ± SD (range), with statistical significance set at p < 0.05.
RESULTS:
Average SCS score was 424 ± 83 (138-614), with 3% of referees categorised as having a ‘severe shortage’ of fruit and vegetable intake, 7% categorised as ‘shortage’, 26% ‘low, 50% ‘good’ and 14% ‘excellent’. No differences were observed between ELT, FIR and NEW (401 ± 76, 430 ± 97 and 436 ± 76, respectively, p > 0.05). Overall, 4% of ELT were categorised as ‘severe shortage’, 9% ‘shortage’, 26% ‘low, 57% ‘good’ and 4% ‘excellent’. Results for FIR were 4%, 4%, 26%, 48% and 17%, and NEW were 0%, 7%, 27%, 47% and 20%, respectively.
CONCLUSION:
This is the first time that skin carotenoid concentration has been used to assess fruit and vegetable intake in elite, first category and new international male soccer referees. Whilst 64% of referees had ‘good’/’excellent’ intakes, 36% were below the “good” classification. Future research is required to understand health and performance implications of SCS in referees and wider athletic populations.

REFERENCES:
1) Ermakov et al., Arch Biochem Biophys, 2018.
2) Jilcott Pitts et al., Public Health Nutr, 2018.
3) Mayne et al., Am J Clin Nutr, 2010.
4) Obana et al., Antioxidants, 2022.