THURSDAY, June 22 (HealthDay News) -- Prolonged, moderate intensity exercise experienced by ultramarathon runners may cause a significant rise in indicators of muscle and liver damage and cause serum enzyme activity changes similar to those which occur in an acute myocardial infarction, according to a report in the June issue of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. However, this rise in creatine kinase and other factors is not accompanied by severe symptoms that require hospitalization, they note.
Katerina P. Skenderi, and colleagues from Harokopio University in Athens, Greece, monitored serum enzyme levels of 39 runners who finished a 246-km race from Athens to Sparta in 36 hours, to test the effect of moderate intensity ultraendurance running on skeletal muscle and hepatic damage.
The investigators found a dramatic increase in creatine kinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), aspartate aminotransferase and alanine
aminotransferase that were anywhere from 585 percent (LDH) to 29,384 percent (CK) higher than baseline levels before the race. These are the highest levels reported for prolonged exercise, they note.
"Muscle and liver damage indicators were elevated at the highest level ever reported as a result of prolonged exercise, although no severe symptoms that required hospitalization were observed in any of the participants," the authors write. "The data suggest that even moderate-intensity exercise of prolonged duration can induce asymptomatic exertional rhabdomyolysis."
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