The Effect of One Session Exhaustive Exercise on Hepcidin, Iron, Ferritin and Hemoglobin of Female Athletes

Females athletes are at increased risk of depleting their iron stores and iron deficiency. It has been suggested recently that hepcidin may be an important regulator of whole-body iron homeostasis. Then the purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of exhaustive exercises on hepcidin hormone, iron, ferritin and hemoglobin of female athletes.

30 female athletes were selected for the study and were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The participants' fasting blood samples was taken 2 h before exercise (including 3*6 repetition), just, 3 and 24 hours after exhaustive exercise. Data analysis was carried out using repeated measure and ANOVA.

The results showed that hepcidin increased significantly after the exercise in the experimental group (P= 0.001) and the highest increase was 3 hours after exercise (P= 0.004). Also Iron (P= 0.001), ferritin (P= 0.001) and hemoglobin (P= 0.001) increased significantly just after exercise. However, the hemoglobin value during 3 hours post exercise decreased Compared to pre exercise (P= 0.01).

It is concluded that a session of acute exercise can increase the hepcidin and so that help to absorb and maintain of iron.