Hydration Status of Portuguese esports Players
Creators: name: Ribeiro, Fernando Jorge Vieira
Publisher: name: Open Science Framework
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Life Sciences
subject: Nutrition
subject: esports, hydration, brain, cognition, urine color chart, urine specific gravity

description: esports has had an exceptional growth in the last decade, and its popularity has increased even more significantly in recent years, boosted by restrictions on circulation imposed in the context of the covid-19 pandemic. It quite clear that esports competitors are mostly dependent on high brain capacities. Dehydration has shown to impair mood and cognitive functions including, attention, short-term memory, visual perception, increased self-reported difficulty in concentrating and completing tasks, augmented fatigue and ‘tension’, whilst drinking water can enhance these functions, especially visual attention, and mood. As esports players rely heavily on brain capacity, maintaining an optimum hydration status may represent a cornerstone for these competitors, especially on competition days. Nonetheless, despite dehydration being common at populational level, affecting ~20 of young European adults, this topic has been largely neglected and research regarding the hydration status of esports competitors is missing. This observational study aims to: • Characterize the unadulterated hydration status of esports players before initiating and during an esports competition. • Test two hypothesis: 1) The esports players of each of three game genres (FPS, MOBA, sports simulator) presents distinct hydration status. 2) esports players with: a) higher daily videogaming practice volume; or b) higher Elo/rank present less favorable hydration states. Methodology Inclusion/Exclusion criteria: Inclusion criteria: Age between 18 and 65 years. Exclusion criteria: • Having been diagnosed with diseases that are likely to alter hydration status (eg, kidney disease). • Reporting any condition that makes collecting urine samples difficult or impossible (eg, urinary incontinence). • Reporting taking substances that affect hydration status (eg, supplements or medications). To avoid the Hawthorne effect on the measures for hydration status, and to guarantee that data collection will be carried out under typical, "real-life" circumstances, the study has been designed to minimize interference in the habits of esports competitors and staff, and the conventional functioning of the esports tournament. The researchers will maintain minimal physical presence and procedures throughout the esports event. They will not modulate the liquid availability established by the event organizer, and the volunteers will receive no recommendations, including regarding diet, fluids ingestion, adequate hydration status, or physical exercise. The volunteers will participate in an live official esports competition. All volunteers will receive a summary of the study's objectives and methodology, replies to any concerns regarding the study, and will be asked to sign an informed consent, provide information regarding their nationality, gender, age, self-reported weight (Kg) and height (cm), health conditions, and prescribed medicines. Body Mass Index will be calculated from height and bodyweight values (kg/m2). Each volunteer will be asked to provide one urine sample during a competitive day, approximately at the same hour (±30 min): one sample was collected within 30 minutes before commencing, and another during a break, approximately halfway through the competition. This will make it possible to evaluate the hydration status of esports players during the competition and to assess the possibility that dehydrated esports players are able to improve their hydration status by ingesting fluids shortly before beginning and during the competition. The hydration status will be assessed through Urine Specific Gravity (USG) measurement and by comparison with the Armstrong (2000) urine color scale. USG (g/cm³) will be measured by comparing a small volume of the volunteer’s urine to the density of double distilled water (density = 1.000) on an ATAGO digital portable refractometer with automatic temperature compensation. The same investigator will perform a triple analysis on each sample, average the results, and apply the USG cut-offs values described by Casa, Armstrong, et al. (2000): &lt;1.010: euhydrated; 1.010-1.020: minimal hypohydration; 1.021-1.030: significant hypohydration; and &gt;1.030: serious hypohydration. Statistical Analysis All data will be given mean and standard deviation, minimum and maximum values (range). The data normality will be verified with Shapiro-Wilk test. The volunteers will be classified either euhydrated or dehydrated according to their USG and urine color chart values, and percentages were given for pre competition USG and color chart values. SPSS 20 will be used for the analysis and p value was set at p&lt;0,05. 95% confidence intervals were also reported.