Q&A: Will traffic pollution affect my marathon training?

Wednesday, 18 January 2012 3:35 PM

Q: I’m training for the London Marathon and while I’m getting to grips with the gruelling training schedule, I’m worried about my running route. Most evenings, I jog beside the main road in my area – mainly because it is the most brightly light – but I’m concerned about all the traffic fumes from the cars. Is the city pollution going to hinder my training? Clara, London.

A: I am continually amazed by the amount of people you see jogging or cycling alongside some of the busiest roads in their neighbourhood, blissfully unaware that by exercising so near to concentrated environmental pollution they are doing themselves more harm than good.

Many of them have never given it a second thought. They are quite happy to go for their run or bike ride with no regard to the damage they are doing to themselves. If someone suggested that you take part in a fitness class in a busy bus station with the diesel engines pumping out sooty, black exhaust fumes you would probably think they were mad. Yet, by running, cycling or doing energetic exercise of any kind near heavy pollution on busy roads you are effectively doing the same thing.

Any benefit from the aerobic exercise is more than cancelled out by the carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulates in vehicle exhaust fumes that they are sucking into their systems. Worse still, this is more damaging than walking in a polluted area. If you are doing aerobic exercise you are taking in between 10 and 20 times more oxygen than you would when walking. Consequently you are breathing in equally large amounts of toxic rubbish that will be fed to every cell of your body via the blood.

If you continue to exercise in this environment week after week you are slowly poisoning yourself and you cannot possibly expect to reach optimal levels of health and wellbeing. Let’s take carbon monoxide as an example. It is odourless, tasteless and invisible to your bodily defences. The hemoglobin that transports oxygen in your blood will combine with it more readily than oxygen. When it does so it forms a poison called carboxyhemoglobin that it delivers to every cell of your body.
Obviously you are receiving a tiny fraction of the amounts that could immediately kill someone, but this man-made poisonous soup builds up in your system over time and increases what is known as your ‘toxic load’; the amount of toxic substances that you have within the your body - both inside and outside of the cells. We all have a toxic load, it is something you start to acquire even before you are born and is unavoidable in the modern world. You may not notice anything immediately but the damage is being done as these substances work undetected to disrupt bodily functions and health. Eventually this damage manifests itself in symptoms of ill health and disease.

An early sign of this is the development of hay fever or asthma, both which derive from under-functioning immune systems and are markers of systemic degeneration in the body. This can be as a result of diet, but it also has a lot to do with environmental pollutants. Incidents of these disorders are almost at epidemic levels, especially in towns and cities where pollution is at its worst and it is probably going to get worse before it gets better. So, it is up to you to protect yourself against all the negative effects of pollution as best you can without giving up on your exercise regime.

We live in a polluted world and it is practically impossible to find a totally pollution free place, but you can greatly limit your direct exposure with just a little thought.
If you live in a city or town where pollution is higher you need to try to find a place away from busy roads or industrial centres. If this is not practical for you then you can still minimise your exposure by exercising very early in the morning before traffic has built up. Make sure that if you regularly exercise in a gym that it is not near direct sources of pollutions such as busy roads or building sites. If it is and there is no air conditioning then the windows will inevitably open and all those noxious gases will pour in.

There are also steps you can take using nutrition to help combat the effects of pollution when exercising. Oxidation is the main form of damage to the body by air pollution. Therefore, making sure that you receive optimum amounts of antioxidants via the diet and additional supplementation should provide a good degree of protection. Eating fresh organic vegetables and fruit will provide many of the antioxidant substances required. You can also supplement but bear in mind that antioxidants work in synergy (together) and taking one on its own without others to support its function is a waste of time. An example of this is vitamin E that helps protect the walls of your cells from free radical damage. However, it needs vitamin C to help deal with further toxic products produced by the antioxidant actions of vitamin E and to regenerate it.

You should therefore always take antioxidants in combination. I created AOk to provide the right synergistic mix of antioxidants. Consumed on a daily basis, it contains the daily recommended amount of antioxidants and just 145 calories. 

- Stuart Roberts, Nutritionist and founder of AOk Drinks.

Tags:
• air pollution
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• exercise
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• london marathon
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• running
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• training