The Effect of Cold and Warm Environments on the Response of Antioxidant Capacity and Oxidative Stress to a Prolonged Running Session

Recent studies have shown that changes in environmental temperature may affect oxidative stress induced by exercise.

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of a prolonged running session in cold and warm environments on the catalase, malondialdehyde, and saliva total antioxidant capacity of young non-athlete men.

This semi-experimental study had a crossover design. Participants included 10 non-athlete young men aged 16 (±0.32) years, weight 65 (±3.59) kg, and with a BMI of 22.5 (±1.49) kg/m2 who were selected via the purposive sampling method. The exercise protocol included 2400 m of running on the treadmill with 50 to 60% of maximum heartbeat in the first step at 31°C and in the second step in a 15°C environment. Repeated measurement ANOVA was used at P  0.05 to analyze the data.

The results showed that malondialdehyde increased following a long-running session in cold and warm environments. In contrast, catalase and total antioxidant capacity following involvement in cold and warm environments showed no significant change. In addition, no significant difference was observed among the studied variables following involvement in hot and cold environments.

Considering the obtained results, it could be mentioned that to fulfill the profitable effects of aerobics exercise, continuous activity is necessary. At the same time, having individual exercise sessions can increase the danger of inducing oxidative stress in non-athlete people without reinforcing anti-oxidative defenses.