Featured Review: Antioxidants for preventing and reducing muscle soreness after exercise

Taking antioxidant supplements to reduce muscles soreness after exercise could have almost no effect, according to a new   Cochrane ReviewPeople engaging in intense exercise often take antioxidant supplements, such as vitamin C and/or E or antioxidant-enriched foods, before and after exercise in the anticipation that these will help reduce muscle soreness. In anew review published in the Cochrane Library, researchers   looked at the evidence from 50 studies. These all compared high-dose antioxidant supplementation with a placebo and their participants all engaged in strenuous exercise that was sufficient to cause muscle soreness. Of the 1089 participants included in the review, nearly nine out of ten of these w ere male and most participants were recreationally active or moderately trained.The researchers found that high dose antioxidant supplementation, thus in excess of the normal recommended daily dose for antioxidants, does not appear to reduce muscle soreness early on after exercise or at one, two, three or four days after exercise.  At all times, the slight differences in the average pain scores found for participants taking supplements compared with those taking placebos were smaller than the difference that people would consider important or even notice. Only nine studies reported on adverse effects and only two found adver se effects.The evidence for muscle soreness is considered to be ' moderate ' or ' low ' quality. This was mainly because the majority of studie...

Source: Cochrane News and Events - December 13, 2017 Category: Information Technology Authors: Muriah Umoquit Source Type: news