Posted on August 23rd, 2010 by Craig Maltby, Editor
Marathoning and immune health
I can’t imagine running a marathon. Twenty six miles of hell. The farthest I’ve ever tried running at one time was a 5K
run in downtown Des Moines 25 years ago. I darn near died. When I was in college, a psychology professor would assign a class project to all of his students: at the end of the semester, all students, using self-directing psychology methods learned during the year, would run a marathon. I never took that class.
One of my Facebook friend of mine…mother of four young kids… just told me she has been training for her first marathon to be run this weekend. She had to drop out as she is just recovering from a week with pneumonia.”Too many long runs depressed the old immune system,” she said.
What a bummer. So, I’m trying to get the immune balance story to her. I’m convinced she may benefit from a more balanced immune function that kicks into gear during physical exertion when it might normally be in retreat.
This paper from PubMed kind of sums up the problem, with no real answers to address it. “Many mechanisms appear to be involved, including exercise-induced changes in stress hormone and cytokine concentrations, body temperature changes, increases in blood flow and dehydration. During this ‘open window’ of immune dysfunction (which may last between 3 and 72 hours, depending on the immune measure), viruses and bacteria may gain a foothold, increasing the risk of subclinical and clinical infection”
How about an EpiCor trial for marathoner in training?
