Emerging Science Manuscript
Effects of hepcidin on improvement of VO2 max in athletes
Annemarie Zamora Binderberger
Department of Nutrition Science
Purdue University
205 N Russell Street
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Phone: 765-409-9713
Email: azamorab@purdue.edu
Abstract
Hepcidin levels peak after exercise in athletes. This is attributable to many inflammatory responses following interleukin-6 elevation. This event can affect iron levels and an onset of anemia. Athletes should ensure that they consume enough dietary iron for hepcidin levels to peak, but not to set them to undergo anemia. Most testing was used to predict VO2 max and hepcidin levels post- exercise. Hepcidin levels peak after aerobic exercise as a protective mechanism to prevent iron toxicity, with this in mind it is important to maintain normal iron levels to have the ability to exercise to an individual’s greatest genetic potential.
101 words
Key words: iron, hepcidin, exercise- induced changes, interleukin-6, anemia, VO2 max
Introduction
Hepcidin levels increase as a protective mechanism as iron levels become higher than normal after aerobic exercise. As a result athletes should be careful to consume and retain sufficient iron to prevent their bodies to become iron deficient. Athletes spend many hours training and performing sports, as a result their bodies sweat, and undergo hemolysis of erythrocytes. This great stress situation affects their potential for using or maintaining iron levels at their normal
- Endurance athletes are particularly vulnerable because over the extended period of time they are not taking in salt, only water. This creates the hypotonic environment outside the cells because of the salt concentration differential.
Exercise increases skeletal muscle Hsp70 expression (Liu et al., 2000), but it also increases the peripheral blood mononuclear cell and serum Hsp70 content (Febbraio et al., 2009). The rise in serum Hsp70 after exercise is not released by the muscles, but by the lymphocytes. In contrast to the whole muscle Hsp70 content, the increase in serum Hsp70 follows immediately after exercise. The serum level of Hsp70 returns to the basal level as soon as 2 hours post exercise (Heck et al., 2012). The serum Hsp70 is directly proportional to cytokines. Reports of pro-inflammatory activity of Hsp70 are due to contamination of Hsp70 with LPS (Gao and Tsan, 2003). Third the effect of exercise on the Hsp70 protein response depends on the initial training status of the participants. There is an increase from baseline Hsp protein levels following exercise, depending on the initial training status of the person. Trained subject have an attenuated stress response following exercise, due to the adaptation of baseline Hsp70 levels (Morton et al., 2009). In trained athletes the HSR is blunted on the protein
Athletes are constantly seeking supplement that provide performance enhancement. Therefore supplements may allow athletes to obtain the desired performance edge. Although certain supplements allow performance enhancement, side effect may become harmful to individuals. Therefore certain supplements should be consumed with precaution. In addition, three common supplements utilized by pinch runners include ATP, Androstenedione, and Creatine. These specific supplements aid athletes to heighten performance while enhancing muscle strength and endurance. Unfortunately these supplement may contain side effect that possibly harm the athlete in the midst of improving performance. Furthermore, athletes pursuing Ergogenic Aids should consider dangerous
Iron Deficiency Anemia affects millions of individuals across the world. This disease strikes many more women than men and has harmful effects on all who suffer from this deficiency that causes oxygen-carrying capacity to decrease. The causes can vary amongst different groups, but the aggravating symptoms remain constant. Much of the research on Iron Deficiency Anemia concentrates on not only the treatment of this disease, but also the prevention of it. To attain a better understanding of how to treat this problem, one must clearly know what Iron Deficiency Anemia means, what causes this disease, the effects of it, and finally how to cure it.
Iron is an important nutrient because it helps carry oxygen in the hemoglobin in red blood cells around the human body. When a healthy iron supply is reached, the body immediately stops absorbing the nutrient, and just lets it past through the digestive system. However, people with hemochromatosis absorb all the iron from the food consumed, past healthy levels. All the extra iron spreads throughout the body, and unevitably causes great damage to major organs and almost all other parts of the body. According to Survival of the Sickest, "hemochromatosis can lead to liver failure, heart failure, diabetes, arthritis, infertility, psychiatric disorders,... cancer," and other diseases if left untreated (Maulem
Some of the symptoms of hemochromatosis are shown as the author observes from Aran Gordon, a natural long-distance runner. From the book Moalem describes it as “He was tired all the time. His joints hurt. His heart seemed to skip a funny beat. He told his running partner he wasn’t sure he could go on with training, with running at all” (1). He was eventually diagnosed through
An iron deficiency affects the athlete tremendously because blood cells, which contain hemoglobin (an iron-containing protein), transport oxygen to your working muscles when you run and when you have an iron deficiency less oxygen is transported to your muscles and your running performance will
The synthesis conducted by Ogan and Pritchett (2013) presents several findings from other studies that support the inclusion of vitamin D as an important component for muscular activity. The synthesis includes a review of studies that discuss the possible effects of vitamin D on muscles, factors involved with vitamin D insufficiency, the required amount of vitamin D and the possible effects of vitamin D with athletic performance.
In previous studies, it has also been seen that overweight or obese individuals are at greater risk of iron deficiency than normal weight individuals. Some studies suggest that possible explanations for this poor dietary iron intake, is increased iron requirements and/or impaired iron absorption. Nutrient Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases (2015), concluded that a calorie reduced diet causes the BMI to decrease however, their data showed that ferritin increases with BMI. The American journal of pathology (2013), demonstrated a model of iron overload syndrome in which an iron enriched diet induces insulin resistance, hyperglycemia and visceral adipose tissue. These contradictions causes us to question if iron plays a role in obesity and obesity related insulin resistance. Turk J Haematol (2014), scientists wanted to assess whether dietary iron overload influenced glucose and lipid metabolism as well as insulin resistance in mice, and found that a more iron enriched diet increases serum and hepatic iron while lowering IRP binding activity.
This is seen when the player begins the game at a HR of 110bpm (Appendix 1), significantly higher than the average resting HR of 70bpm (lower for elite athletes). Consequently, the athlete feels less fatigued once the game begins as fatiguing by-products, such as lactate, would not accumulate as quickly due to higher available oxygen levels. It is recommended that an active recovery post game, like walking or jogging be performed to keep the HR elevated, enabling increased blood flow to the muscles and hence supplying oxygen to clear accumulating blood lactate. Male Touch Football players have a higher relative VO2 maximum (55.8ml/kg/min) compared to females (49.1ml/kg/min), therefore have greater oxygen supply which can be utilised by the muscles during recovery, resulting in a faster recovery (Appendix 2). This is evident as immediately post game males had a higher blood lactate level (7.9mmol/L) compared to females (7.6mmol/L) yet 20 minutes post game, males had a lower blood lactate level (3.2mmol/L) than females (3.3mmol/L) (Appendix 2).
This topic of discussion is essential to medicine for many reasons, the main reason being that erythropoietin is the glycoprotein hormone that allows for the production of red blood cells1. Red blood cells are the carriers of essential nutrients, which are needed by the body, such as oxygen2. Recombinant human erythropoietin has proven to be beneficial to patients suffering from anemia, because this serves as an alternative to the endogenous erythropoietin which decreases in anemic patients, causing them to become severely ill1. In the article, it is stated that “the availability of recombinant human erythropoietin has led to widespread therapeutic applications in anemia associated with, for example, chronic renal insufficiency, chemotherapy, and HIV infection1.” However, abusing the use of recombinant human erythropoietin can lead to many detrimental conditions and health problems, such as hypertension and many cardiovascular complications3. Therefore, this intense focus and study was crucial to the understanding of erythropoietin and the effects of abusing recombinant erythropoietin, for the purposes of higher athletic performance. In the laboratory, it is important to understand the differences between these two forms of erythropoietin, and in order to be successful
Over this past summer, I got sick with iron deficiency anemia. The iron levels in my blood dropped which made it difficult to find energy to do things that are normal to me. Mainly, I wanted to sleep all the time. It was so difficult to train for cross country, that I worried that my times from the previous year wouldn't improve. The beginning of my season was really discouraging, but I knew that I had to work my way back into shape to overcome the loss of fitness from the anemia. I felt more energetic as time went on and I continued my training. I added more difficult workouts, longer runs, and extra core work to my regimen which resulted in success. Despite the setback from the anemia, the girls team advanced to semi state and I made
Maximal oxygen consumption or VO2 max refers to the single maximum oxygen consumption that an individual can utilize during graded-intensity exercise. VO2 max can be assessed through properly administered submaximal oxygen consumption test which can include exercise test modes of treadmill, cycle ergometer or step test. In an individual, VO2 max can be determined by the cardiovascular system 's ability to deliver oxygenated blood to working muscles and then the muscle 's ability to extract that oxygen from the blood and generate energy for work. Influencing factors can include genetics, decline of VO2 max with aging, and finally aerobic training can positively influence an individual 's VO2 max and overall aerobic fitness. Individuals with high VO2 maxes often have greater overall aerobic fitness, which includes high efficiency, or running economy, better glycogen storage and is often an indicator of success when completing aerobic tasks of over 20 minutes. On the contrary, a low VO2 max can predict poor overall aerobic fitness which can include cardiovascular disease and problems with transporting oxygen to working muscles. (3) In these laboratory exercise test, submaximal intensity exercises were used to determine an individual 's predicted VO2 max which allowed the assessment of their overall aerobic fitness and the ability to compare the correlations between tests.
Iron is one of the important minerals that is required for our bodies to function properly. Most of the iron in our body is found in the blood such as haemoglobin, approximately 60 -70% of the human body’s iron is found in the haemoglobin, a protein in the blood that transports oxygen. Iron is also present in muscle tissue and some enzymes. There are two types of iron in the body which are “Heme Iron” from animal products and “Non-Heme Iron” vegetables and
Nutritional Anemia or Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) is one of the most recurrent and easily treatable condition affecting millions of people. 1,2 Although iron deficiency anemia does not cause severe morbidity and mortality3, it has a significant influence on one’s health; especially affecting the physical and neurocognitive growth and development of younger children and affecting the women of reproductive age. 1, 2, 3 According to WHO, in 2011, there were approximately two and half billion people in the world that are considered to be anemic.9 The underlying pathophysiology of iron deficiency anemia is iron exhaustion from the blood leading to reduced oxygen carrying capacity. 6, 10 Of the several types of anemias, Iron deficiency anemia is the most common anemia, hence the term “Anemia” usually reverberates Iron deficiency anemia unless otherwise specified. 2