Dylan Stoll | Health Editor
Featured image courtesy of Jordan Chu, Multimedia Editor
Besides broken bones and torn muscles, sports are often considered the best way to get in the exercise one requires to live a healthy and prolonged life. That being said, there are still some downsides to physical activity — downsides that should be considered seriously if one plans on making strenuous physical activity a part of one’s regular routine.
Infections are one of those downsides and are much more common than one may think.
A paper published in the Asian Journal of Sports Medicine observed three different cases of sports-related infections: the first involved upper respiratory infections (URI’s), the second epidermal infections, and the third blood-borne infections.
URIs were found most commonly in athletes who experienced heavier, more intensive levels of exercise. For example, the aforementioned paper refers to a group of marathon runners who were examined two weeks after they had completed their race — 33 per cent of them had URIs.
The reason for this, as the paper states, is what is referred to as a “J-shaped relationship between physical activity and respiratory tract infections.” The theory is that with moderate levels of exercise, one can strengthen their immune system, but with high levels of exercise, the immune system is actually weakened. Symptoms of a URI include nasal congestion, fever and a painful or scratchy throat. If you’ve ever felt like you caught a cold of sorts after an intense regiment, this may be the reason why.
As for epidermal infections, the problem is more associated with the cleanliness of the equipment the athletes use; the sort of equipment that one may find at the York campus gym, for example. Sports involving plenty of skin contact against other surfaces, whether they are epidermal or not, will often have higher levels of skin infections; one can acquire an infection from a dirty mat as easily as they can from a fellow athlete. The infections themselves can be viral, bacterial, or fungal, and can be caught using anything from a sweaty dumbbell to a public shower.
One of the more common viral infections, herpes simplex virus (HSV), has been estimated to have infected 20 to 40 per cent of wrestlers and rugby players, and is of course transmitted most often through skin contact. Symptoms of an epidermal infection can include anything from scaly plaques and lesions to warts; thankfully, most are easily cured after a trip to the doctor.
Akhilesh Sawant, a biology student at York, says that he believes he was infected with what is called Hordeolum, otherwise known as a stye, at a gym that he frequents. For those of you who have not experienced the hell that is a stye, a stye is an acute focal infection of the eye caused by staphylococci bacteria that results in a painful swollen, yes, you guessed it, eye. Though experts are divided as to whether the stye is contagious, Sawant feels that it is. “I’m 80 per cent sure I got from the gym,” says Sawant.
Blood-borne infections, though less common, can still occur as a result of sustained epidermal contact involving lesions or cuts. If one has an open wound and is infected with hepatitis B, C, or G while wrestling, for example, they are at a higher risk for spreading that infection to other wrestlers they come in contact with. As a precaution, if you are an athlete in a high contact sport and you have open wounds, it is advised that you refrain from said sport until your wounds are healed.
And the same goes for all infections and illnesses in general. You may want to keep up your workout regiment in spite of that cold, or in spite of that infection, but you’re only hurting yourself and the other athletes around you. Take the time to rest, relax and recharge, or you may find yourself becoming the next person responsible for an outbreak at your local gym.
