Marc Geenen
Flemish Association of Sports Physicians (SKA), Belgium
Title: Pre-participation hydration test with salivary osmolarity in marathon runners
Biography
Biography: Marc Geenen
Abstract
More and more people are participating in endurance sports events without fully understanding the risks involved. One of those risks is dehydration. After having performed small scale hydration tests, SKA suspected that many amateur or even professional endurance runners in Flanders and its neighboring are not aware of their hydration and already have too little body water available before the start of a long distance run, despite the proven negative influence of dehydration on sports performance and the potentially serious dangers connected with severe dehydration: accidents due to drowsiness, hyperthermia, arrhythmia, etc. Such a water shortage can no longer be compensated during a match, even if you still drink a lot, and thus weighs on the entire sports performance. SKA wants to corroborate this suspected unawareness of hydration status by testing a relatively large cohort of participants at several marathons.