Jul 2, 2026 · 39 min · 9 segments
Iron deficiency is one of the most overlooked reasons endurance athletes struggle with fatigue, poor recovery, declining performance, and brain fog. In this episode of the Find Your Edge Podcast…
Corey DuganGuest
Emily QiuGuest
Chris NewportHost
So why are endurance athletes at such high risk for iron deficiency? There's a lot of reasons I'm sure.
Exercise, specifically endurance exercise, like running as a, as an example, is a, a mode that causes iron loss.
So if you're running and y- when your foot hits the ground each step, you can, you do destroy red blood cells with that strike.
However, these are all factors that go into play when it comes to, uh, looking at iron status in endurance athletes.
So I only touched on iron loss during exercise, but it's a fantastic point that another avenue for susceptibility to iron deficiency from exercise is the absorption block, which is hepcidin.
So if your hepcidin levels are high, then you have a low iron absorption capacity.
And in exercise or endurance exercise, you have a really big inflammation response, and hepcidin spikes.
So after exercise, and specifically endurance exercise, we see that rise in hepcidin, and then, uh, accordingly, you see that decrease in iron absorption.
Da- And that's, that's not even considering the, uh, if, if we were to look at female athletes particularly, which was, uh, the topic of my PhD, there's just a whole nother dimension of factors to consider in, in this context.
However, in a woman's health perspective, we also have iron loss from menstruation if the athlete we're concerned with is regularly menstruating.
So why are endurance athletes at such high risk for iron deficiency? There's a lot of reasons I'm sure.
Exercise, specifically endurance exercise, like running as a, as an example, is a, a mode that causes iron loss.
So if you're running and y- when your foot hits the ground each step, you can, you do destroy red blood cells with that strike.
However, these are all factors that go into play when it comes to, uh, looking at iron status in endurance athletes.
So I only touched on iron loss during exercise, but it's a fantastic point that another avenue for susceptibility to iron deficiency from exercise is the absorption block, which is hepcidin.
So if your hepcidin levels are high, then you have a low iron absorption capacity.
And in exercise or endurance exercise, you have a really big inflammation response, and hepcidin spikes.
So after exercise, and specifically endurance exercise, we see that rise in hepcidin, and then, uh, accordingly, you see that decrease in iron absorption.
Da- And that's, that's not even considering the, uh, if, if we were to look at female athletes particularly, which was, uh, the topic of my PhD, there's just a whole nother dimension of factors to consider in, in this context.
However, in a woman's health perspective, we also have iron loss from menstruation if the athlete we're concerned with is regularly menstruating.
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