A very disturbing story in the New York Times reports on the widespread use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory meds during extreme exercise and the fact that these drugs actually promote injury and reduce the training effect. This story is notable not just for what it says about biochemistry, but also for what it says about our culture of extremity. It also begs the question: “If so many participants feel the need to use painkillers before their event, then what exactly are they doing and why are they doing it?” In the course of natural animal living, pain is a signal to modify behavior; it is extremely valuable feedback. Intentional masking of pain is neither healthy nor smart.
See Phys Ed: Does Ibuprofen Help or Hurt During Exercise? By Gretchen Reynolds
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Frank, you’re absolutely right. If they have to take pills before, during, and/or after, why are they doing it?
Part of it is probably in the running culture – everyone’s doing it, so I should too. But that culture comes from a larger culture, US culture, which says dumb things like “no pain no gain,” and advises people to take a pill for literally EVERYTHING.
Is it any surprise that anti-inflammatories cause inflammation? Only to people raised in a Western medical tradition, where we think a true “cure” can be got from a pill, or any other one-off treatment.
In other traditions, they’d say that if you take something that causes a minor reaction in one direction, it’ll cause a very large reaction in the opposite direction (the basis of homeopathy, and some Chinese Medicine treatments). So, to combat inflammation, you might take something that causes a minor inflammatory response in your body…
At least “science” is finally starting to catch up with 3500 years of worldwide medical history…