No association between the angiotensin-converting enzyme ID polymorphism and elite endurance athlete status

Abstract

Several studies have reported that the insertion (I) allele of the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) I/deletion (D) polymorphism is associated with enhanced responsiveness to endurance training and is more common in endurance athletes than in sedentary controls. We tested the latter hypothesis in a cohort of 192 male endurance athletes with maximal oxygen uptake ≥75 ml ⋅ kg⁻¹ ⋅ min⁻¹and 189 sedentary male controls. The ACE ID polymorphism in intron 16 was typed with the three-primer polymerase chain reaction method. Both the genotype (P = 0.214) and allele (P = 0.095) frequencies were similar in the athletes and the controls. Further analyses in the athletes revealed no excess of the I allele among the athletes within the highest quartile (> 80 ml ⋅ kg⁻¹ ⋅ min⁻¹) or decile (>83 ml ⋅ kg⁻¹ ⋅ min⁻¹) of maximal oxygen uptake. These data from the GENATHLETE cohort do not support the hypothesis that the ACE ID polymorphism is associated with a higher cardiorespiratory endurance performance level.