The Impact of Morning versus Afternoon Exercise on Iron Absorption in Athletes

Purpose This study examined postexercise inflammatory, hepcidin, and iron absorption responses to endurance exercise performed in the morning versus the afternoon. Methods Sixteen endurance-trained runners (10 male, 6 female) with serum ferritin (sFer) < 50 μg·L −1 completed a 90-min running protocol (65% vV˙O 2max ) in the morning ( am ), or the afternoon ( pm ), in a crossover design. An iron-fortified fluid labeled with stable iron...