Assessment of DNA damage in a group of professional dancers during a 10-month dancing season

Introduction: Professional dance is an activity with high artistic and physical demands. Requires physical athletic attributes such as muscular strength, endurance, coordination, agility and swiftness. Regular physical activity brings a lot of positive health-related outcomes. Reduce the risk of numerous health disorders like cardiovascular diseases, cancer, hypertension, diabetes, bone and joint diseases and it is responsible to maintain a numerous psychosocial benefits. However, intensive physical exercise is associated with an increased production of free radicals that may overcome the antioxidant system capacity to maintain homeostasis and may react with different biomolecules, e.g. deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), inducing oxidative damage that may disturb the cell genomic integrity and cause a lot of diseases. The aim of the present study was to evaluate both DNA damage and oxidative stress in a group of professional dancers before and after a 10-month dancing season