Footstrike hemolysis factors?

Hey there, I was diagnosed with footstrike hemolysis about three years ago. I went to school in London and was suddenly doing all my runs on pavement after running trails for the past few years. In addition to this, I wasn't eating enough red meat and became very iron deficient.

When I came back my doctor made the diagnosis. He claimed that I was crushing the red blood cells in my feet from the pavement miles and not getting enough iron to compensate for the rbc i was loosing. He put me on iron supplements and after a few weeks I began to feel much better. It took a few years though for everything to go back to normal.

bump, bump, bump

thanks for answer, but I'm looking for info like how to strenght erythrocyte membranes or how footstrike hemolysis is affected by structure of blood vessels (like i.e. some structural changes of them, like - for example - calcification - affect this process).

Do you wear vibrams?

Nope. Still, I'm using training flats, I heard there's theory such behaviour could lead to increased hemolysis, yet I heard one exactly opposite, too - heel strike increase it. None of them is proved.

I suppose it might be something with overall health - I had some minor problems with liver and thyroid gland, still ALOT of runners is affected by it so factors are probably very common.

Does footsrike hemolysis really exist, or is it a myth?

Hemolysis in athletes exist and as far as I can see in studies it's caused by footstrike. Yet there are some confusing results - i.e. hemolysis exist i.e. in swimmers too (just in far lesser amount). There's theory it's caused by iron deficiency - our body break erythrocyted by purpose, just to convert iron into myoglobin in muscles.

Don't all athletes have a faster blood cell turnover? Much less than the average RBC lifespan of 105 days, closer to 70?

My Hgb measured fine even after doing 20+ mile barefoot long runs on pavement. Barefoot running tends to be "low impact," though. My guess is that heel striking is the culprit (if indeed footstrike hemolysis exists), though I have no data on that.

J.O. wrote:

Don't all athletes have a faster blood cell turnover? Much less than the average RBC lifespan of 105 days, closer to 70?

This is another hypothesis I saw - runners body kill the RBC's earlier, as the young erythrocytes can carry more oxygen.

What concerns me is my extremely high serum iron count, if I measure after running (it exceeds the upper range limit, despite very low ferritin). Such numbers means very high rate of erythrocytes killed, so my body waste alot of energy rebuilding them, and the released iron can cause some serious damage.

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something to read:

http://jap.physiology.org/content/94/1/38.full

And some studies I can't access, anyone can read them and give some hints, by any chance?

http://www.amjmed.com/article/0002-9343

(85)90443-7/abstract

http://informahealthcare.com/doi/pdf/10.3109/13813459009115743

http://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Citation/1998/05001/The_Effect_of_Exercise_on_Serum_Iron_in_Trained.1138.aspx