Increased oxidative stress in healthy children following an exercise program: a pilot study

Exercise can induce oxidative stress or an imbalance between reactive oxygen species and cellular antioxidant defenses.

We investigated the effect of a real-life exercise program on systemic oxidative stress measured by urinary concentrations of 8-isoprostaglandin F2alpha (8-iso-PGF2 alpha), a noninvasive index of lipid peroxidation, in a well-characterized pediatric group.

Healthy but primarily sedentary, 8- to 10-year-old children (n = 6, mean age 8.8 +/- 0.9 years) of equally distributed healthy weight, overweight, and obese categories, participated in a 5-week exercise program (track and field summer camp, 2 hours/day, 1-2 days/week).

By using high-performance liquid chromatography with online electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (LC/ESI/MS/MS), we found a significant (p = .028) increase in group mean urinary 8-iso-PGF2 alpha concentration from 8.163 +/- 6.919 ng/mg creatinine pre-exercise program to 32.320 +/- 16.970 ng/mg creatinine post-exercise program. The increase was also measured at each individual level. We found preliminary evidence that pre- and post-exercise program urinary 8-iso-PGF2 alpha concentrations selectively correlated with children's cardiometabolic characteristics and mood.

Our results warrant further exploration of the relationships between pre/post-exercise oxidative stress marker 8-iso-PGF2 alpha and cardiometabolic characteristics, exercise habits, eating habits, and mood to determine whether increased post-exercise oxidative stress in healthy children is part of their normal adaptation to exercise or mediator of oxidative injury.