Exercise in Glucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase Deficiency: Harmful or Harmless? A Narrative Review

Table 2

Experimental studies that examined the effects of exercise on various haematological and/or blood redox status indices in G6PD-deficient individuals.

Study	Subject(s)	Exercise	Symptoms	Results	Comments
Nikolaidis et al. [18]	9 males ( yrs) with G6PD deficiency (D) & 9 males ( yrs) with normal G6PD activity (N)	Two exhaustive treadmill exercise protocols of different duration (12 min & 50 min)	No	Preexercise (12 min): ↓RBC, ↓Hct, ↓Hb, ↓GSH, ↓GSSG in D than N; Postexercise (12 min): ↑TBARS, ↑PC, ↑catalase, ↑TAC, ↓GSH (both in D and N), ↓RBC, ↓Hct, ↓Hb in D than N; Preexercise (50 min): ↓Hct, ↓Hb, ↓GSH, ↓GSSG in D than N; Postexercise (50 min): ↑TBARS, ↑PC, ↑catalase, ↑TAC, ↓GSH, ↑GSSG, ↓GSH/GSSG (both in D and N), ↓RBC, ↓Hct, ↓Hb in D than N	Exercise until exhaustion did not lead to higher oxidative stress in D in comparison to N
Jamurtas et al. [19]	9 males ( yrs) with G6PD deficiency (D) & 9 males ( yrs) with normal G6PD activity (N)	Run at ~75% HRmax for 45 min	No	Preexercise: ↓Hct, ↓GSH in D than N; Postexercise: no changes in GSH, GSSG, GSH/GSSG or lipid hyperoxides (in both D and N), ↓GSH in D than N	45 min of moderate intensity exercise did not increase markers of oxidative stress and haemoglobin oxidation in D or N
Theodorou et al. [20]	9 males ( yrs) with G6PD deficiency (D) & 9 males () with normal G6PD activity (N)	Eccentric muscle-damaging exercise	No	Preexercise: ↓GSH, ↓GSSG in D than N; Postexercise (5 days): changes in indices of muscle function, redox status, and haemolysis in D were similar to N; ↓GSH, ↓GSSH in D than N	High-intensity muscle-damaging exercise did not lead to different perturbations of muscle function, blood redox status, and haemolysis in D compared to N
Chanda et al. [21]	18 females ( yrs) with G6PD deficiency (D), 18 females ( yrs) with normal G6PD activity (N)	Two treadmill exercise protocols of different intensity (maximal (ME) and 75% HRmax (MM))	No	ME: ↑total MP for 45 minutes after the exercise, increase was higher in D as compared to N; MM: no change in total MP; Total MP concentrations were inversely correlated with G6PD activity; Total MP concentrations were positively correlated with MDA concentrations	D may participate in MM without higher MP concentration and oxidative stress compared to N
Lee et al. [28]	27 yrs man with G6PD deficiency (D), four males with normal G6PD levels (N)	Run at 70-75% HRmax for 30 min	No	Postexercise: ↓GSH in N	No differences between D and N probably due to high aerobic fitness status of D

HR: heart rate, Hb: haemoglobin, RBC: red blood cells, Hct: haematocrit, GSH: reduced glutathione, GSSG: oxidized glutathione, TBARS: thiobarbituric acid reactive substances, PC: protein carbonyls, TAC: total antioxidant capacity, ME: maximal exercise, MM: moderate-intensity exercise, MP: microparticles.