GI Investigations

In this edition of The Rundown, winter gloves get smarter and researchers explore an inconvenient exercise problem.

The Rundown

Smart Gloves. Gloves are getting smarter for your cold weather needs. Eddie Bauer’s Guide Pro Smart Heated Gloves monitor and adjust their temperature as needed through “clim8” AI technology. They can be linked to the clim8 app via Bluetooth to track and improve their settings across different terrains. Built-in sensors across several heating zones power the gloves, which are rechargeable and come in three styles, including a mitten.

GI Investigations. With her live-on-TV pitstop during the 2005 London Marathon Paula Radcliffe became the most famous example of a dreaded problem: Exercise-induced gastrointestinal distress.

GI problems are related to the lining of your gut, which is meant to block bacteria and toxins while allowing food to pass into your bloodstream. During extended periods of exercise, this lining can break down because blood flow and oxygen delivery are redirected to your working muscles, limiting the oxygen that goes to gut cells.

It’s also theorized that prolonged exercise can flip your nervous system to fight-or-flight mode, which temporarily pauses digestive functions. When your gut lining isn’t working properly and food doesn’t get through, the result is often GI problems like nausea, gas and the urge to go.

As Paula and many others have found out, endurance running is a well-known trigger for gastrointestinal troubles but a recent study published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport suggests that other endurance sports like cycling, aren’t immune. The research compares the GI impact of running and cycling under matched conditions and finds that runners don’t have more GI symptoms than cyclists.

For the study, the research team recruited 28 endurance athletes who either cycled or ran for two hours at 55% of VO2 max (for running) or maximal aerobic power (for cycling). The volunteers ate the same breakfast, performed their run/ride at the same room temperature (95.5 degrees to make GI problems more likely), and completed the same hydration protocols.

Blood tests that assessed outcomes related to gut leakage and inflammation found basically no differences between the groups. The results were similar for reported GI symptoms. In both groups, a quarter of the participants reported upper GI symptoms. More runners than cyclists reported lower GI symptoms but the differences were minor, with no overall differences in severity.

It’s possible that spending two-hours at 55% of max is not that hard, even at 95 degrees so the test may not have triggered widespread problems in either group. Still, the urge to go during an exercise session is something we all want to avoid. While there are no simple solutions that work for everyone there are ways to lessen the risk including sufficient (not extreme) hydration, paying attention to the time you eat relative to exercise and figuring out trigger foods.

Replay

This week’s vintage moment in fitness culture is brought to you by team-building: Washington, D.C. postal clerks do calisthenics, 1923. Photo: Shorpy.