Summary: In 1980 Noakes was tasked to start a sports science course at the University of Cape Town. Noakes went on to head the Medical Research Council-funded Bioenergetics of Exercise Research Unit, which was later changed to the MRC/UCT Research Unit for Exercise Science and Sports Medicine.[3] In the early 1990s Noakes co-founded the Sports Science Institute of South Africa,[4] with former South African rugby player Morne du Plessis. His unit's physiological research has produced over 370 scientific articles since 1996. He published a scientific paper on the condition now known as Exercise Associated Hyponatremia (EAH).[citation needed] He first recognized this condition in a female runner during the 1984 Comrades Marathon, and published his findings in 1985 in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. Noakes hosted the 1st International Exercise-Associated Hyponatremia Consensus Development Conference in Cape Town in May 2005. Noakes is also known for renewing and elaborating the idea first proposed by the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine winner Archibald Hill that a central governor regulates exercise to protect body homeostasis.[5][6][7][8] In 2005 he undertook a series of pioneering experiments in the Arctic and Antarctic on South African (British-born) swimmer Lewis Gordon Pugh to understand the full range of human capability in extreme cold. He discovered that Pugh had the ability to raise his core body temperature before entering the water in anticipation of the cold and coined the phrase 'anticipatory thermo-genesis' to describe it. In 2007 he was the expedition doctor for Pugh’s one kilometre swim at the Geographic North Pole. Noakes has written two books. "Lore of Running" is a resource on almost every topic for understanding, enjoying, and improving performance in the sport.[9] "Waterlogged" takes readers inside the science of athlete hydration.[10]
