Question

You are an endurance runner taking part in the Marathon Des Sables, a notorious brutal ultramathon through the Saharan Desert where temperatures can reach 117 ^oF . During the race you get lost and stranded in the desert for some time before being rescued. Describe your body’s endocrine response from your time in the race up through your rescue. Assume upon rescue they gave you fluids and food. You must talk about at least 2 hormone systems.

Answer 1

As you begin your marathon, all of your physiological support systems ,the musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive, immune, nervous, and endocrine system , will immediately go into overdrive. as you continue through the race your heart starts to beat faster to supply oxygen to the demanding tissues,Your heart will have to pump three to four times the amount of blood around your body,the blood that is pumped from your heart will be redistributed around your body with more going to your muscles and less to your stomach and abdominal organs, adrenaline and noradrenaline are the main hormones whose concentrations increase markedly during this phase. as you continue in the race you use up lot of energy, which is primarily given by glucose, as the glucose stores gets depleted,the brain senses this and the endocrine senses this and release hormone like glucagon, which can supply glucose to the body. When you get lost and get stranderd in the desert, your anxiety levels could increase, during which time your sympathetic stimulation will get activated, which is the fight and flight response of our body, in response to this, stress hormones like cortisol, adrenaline, nor adrenaline could be released, as the desert heat increases dehydration could set in, in response to this the pituitary gland releases hormone like ADH to restore water balance, upon rescue your anxiety level decreases, and your parasympathetic system gets activated to keep you calm, and upon getting fluids and food, your brain senses this and may decrease the levels of ADH.