A question to the physician from a patient on hemodialysis: Would it be safe to run a marathon? A case report

A patient on maintenance hemodialysis asked his physician if it would be safe for him to run a marathon. For healthy persons, studies show that it is relatively safe. Very few data are available on patients on hemodialysis performing out of center endurance exercise. To address this question, we conducted a clinical study to investigate the electrolyte derangements during different running distances. Our main concern was development of hyperkalemia. We present a case of an anuric hemodialysis patient, who ran eight different runs with a maximum distance of 32.2 km. Blood was analyzed before and after the runs. We did not find severe hyperkalemia at any point. According to this study, we found no signs of increased risk.