The Effects of Acute Exercise Bouts on Hepcidin in Women

<jats:sec sec-type="purpose"><jats:title>Purpose:</jats:title><jats:p>To investigate the effects of acute exercise on serum hepcidin and iron (sFe) in active women. Changes in interleukin-6 (IL-6), hepcidin, ferritin, and sFe in response to 2 different exercise durations were compared.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec sec-type="methods"><jats:title>Methods:</jats:title><jats:p>Twelve women age 19–32 yr performed 2 treadmill runs (60 and 120 min) at 65% of VO<jats:sub>2max</jats:sub>. Blood samples were obtained before, immediately after, and 3, 6, 9, and 24 hr after exercise. Two-way repeatedmeasures ANOVA was conducted to examine changes in measured variables. Significance was accepted at <jats:italic>p</jats:italic> < .05.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec sec-type="results"><jats:title>Results:</jats:title><jats:p>Significant effects for trial were observed for hepcidin (60 min: 1.15 ± 0.48 nmol/L; 120 min: 2.28 ± 1.44 nmol/L) and for time, with hepcidin significantly increased 3 hr postexercise in both trials (60 min: 3 hr – 1.99 ± 2.00 nmol/L; 120 min: 3 hr – 4.60 ± 4.61 nmol/L). Significant main effects for time occurred for sFe, ferritin, and IL-6. sFe was significantly decreased 9 hr postexercise compared with 3 and 24 hr postexercise. IL-6 was significantly increased immediately postexercise.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec sec-type="conclusions"><jats:title>Conclusions:</jats:title><jats:p>Both runs resulted in significant increases in hepcidin 3 hr after exercise. Increases in hepcidin were preceded by significant increases in IL-6 immediately postexercise and followed by significant decreases in sFe 9 hr postexercise. It was concluded that endurance exercise increases the production of hepcidin, which affects sFe. The 2-hr exercise bout stimulated greater changes in serum hepcidin than the 1-hr bout.</jats:p></jats:sec>