Alumnilecture: 'Breath analysis at the Four Days Marches' (Lecture)

One great way to improve and maintain overall health is doing exercise. With our research, we try to measure the effect of exercise on people with various health conditions. But: where could we find enough participants to enroll, performing the same type of exercise? The solution was just in front of our eyes. We are located in Nijmegen, so an unique event, taken place every year, was the perfect opportunity: the Four Days Marches (Vierdaagse).

Due to exercise, changes in various metabolic processes are expected to happen in the human body. Monitoring these processes reveals important information about the health status of an individual. One approach to detect these changes is via breath analysis – a very useful tool because it is non-invasive and responds quickly to these changes. In this talk, I will present a few pilot studies, performed during the Four Days Marches events with a multidisciplinary team of researchers.