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1) 2020 study by Fernández-Lázaro et al. :
I’ve recently become obsessed with spicy foods.
We’ve started a weekly habit of trying out a new curry recipe every weekend and it has been tons of fun.
This has led to me consuming more turmeric than usual, which has had some interesting effects.
This recent 2020 study was a systematic review on the effects of a natural polyphenol that gets extracted from turmeric by the name of curcumin.
Here are the most interesting points from the paper:
Between 150 to 1500mg of curcumin a day reduced muscle damage and improved performance.
The authors suggest that it be used during competitions and periods of high demand to speed up recovery, as it reduced inflammation and oxidation in subjects.
On the other hand, high doses of curcumin appear to alter iron metabolism, which could cause iron deficiencies. A possible way of overcoming this is by increasing the bioavailability of curcumin by 2 000% through the use of 20mg of piperine (black pepper).
So maybe it is the added black pepper and turmeric in my weekend curry, or maybe it’s all placebo from knowing the science.
But either way, Monday morning workouts have never felt better.
2) 2020 study by Meah et al.:
I have a pet peeve when it comes to levels of evidence and so this paper caught my attention when researchers noted that the majority of medical conditions listed as contraindications to exercise during pregnancy were based on expert opinion, which is of course one of the lowest levels of evidence.
The systematic review couldn’t find sufficient evidence demonstrating that banning exercise for certain cases actually improved pregnancy outcomes.
The authors discuss 11 conditions where their conclusions were that for these conditions, “there is absolutely no evidence to support stopping prenatal exercise, in fact, becoming completely inactive could result in increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes. “
These 11 conditions were:
Chronic or gestational hypertension
overweight/obesity
recurrent miscarriage
short cervix
multiple pregnancies
epilepsy and anaemia
orthopaedic limitations
history of extremely sedentary lifestyle
history of spontaneous preterm labour or fetal growth restriction
References
1) Fernández-Lázaro, Diego et al. “Modulation of Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage, Inflammation, and Oxidative Markers by Curcumin Supplementation in a Physically Active Population: A Systematic Review.” Nutrients vol. 12,2 501. 15 Feb. 2020
2) Meah VL, Davies GA, Davenport MH. “Why can’t I exercise during pregnancy? Time to revisit medical ‘absolute’ and ‘relative’ contraindications: systematic review of evidence of harm and a call to action”. British Journal of Sports Medicine 2020;54:1395-1404
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Written by Kyle van Heerden
Online Educator at Research Raconteur
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