Antihistamines could reduce the body’s ability to recover after vigorous exercise by nearly a third scientists have found.
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About 3,000 genes have been found to be responsible for aiding recovery, by boosting muscles and blood vessels, but in the presence of high doses of antihistamines almost 27 percent of the gene response is blunted, scientists from University of Oregon have found. However quite how these 795 affected genes could affect competitive athletes, however, is not known, said co-author John R. Halliwill, professor of human physiology.
Histamine is a substance in the body that responds to pollens, moulds, animal dander, insect bites and other allergens, however some people’s body goes in overdrive and fuels uncomfortable allergic reactions, prompting the use of antihistamines.
In the research, 10 men and six women, all 23-25 years old, physically fit and active, performed an hour of knee-extension exercise at 60 percent of their peak power, about 45 kicks per minute. Biopsies were done before and three hours after exercise to obtain samples of the quadriceps.
Eight participants took 540 milligrams of fexofenadine and 300 milligrams of ranitidine — levels nearly three times the recommended dosages of the over-the-counter antihistamines. Each target one of the two known histamine receptors involved in recovery responses. During exercise, blood flow, blood pressure and heart rate were monitored.
The antihistamines had no effect prior to exercise and little influence on gene expression at the conclusion of the workout. Three hours after exercise 88 percent of the 795 genes affected by the antihistamines mostly responded with lower levels of expression.
“Histamine, a substance that we typically think of negatively and is most often associated with seasonal allergies, is an important substance contributing to the normal day-to-day response to exercise in humans,” said Romero, In their conclusion, the authors noted that the research highlighted only a small fraction of genes likely involved in signalling pathways influenced by histamine receptors activation during recovery.
However it is to early in the research to suggest people should avoid taking antihistamines when they exercise, Halliwill said.
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“We’ve got more work that we have to do,” he said. “We need to do a training study in which we put people on histamine blockers and see if their adaptations to exercise training are as robust or diminished. There are a lot of redundancies in physiological systems. I wouldn’t be surprised if blocking histamine receptors ends up being overcome by something else, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if we can demonstrate that some responses to exercise training do become blunted if you take high doses of histamine blockers.”
These prestigious annual awards celebrate the outstanding achievements of sportsmen and sportswomen around the world and other great names recognised included tennis players Serena Williams and Novak Djokovic, and the Kiwi rugby team the All Blacks.
The Laureus World Action Sportsperson of the Year is Jan Frodeno! #LWSA16 #janfrodeno #ironman #laureus #laureus #berlin
A photo posted by Laureus Sport (@laureussport) on Apr 18, 2016 at 2:16pm PDT
Larger than life for a brief moment on the sport worlds biggest stage. What an amazing journey our sport has sent me on and what an amazing time to be in the game of triathlon. Grateful to share this truly happy, nerve wrecking, grateful and breath taking night with my best friend and wife @emmafrodeno . Off for a run to celebrate a way only an endurance freak might appreciate… @laureussport #LWSA16 #WorldActionSportsmanOfTheYear
A photo posted by Jan Frodeno (@janfrodeno) on Apr 19, 2016 at 12:20am PDT
In 2015 Jan Frodeno became the first Olympic champion to win the Ironman World Championship with a dominating triumph in Hawaii. In July Jan Frodeno has announced he will go for the long distance world record at Challenge Roth.
The Laureus World Sports Awards, were held in Berlin on April 18, 2016. This was the event’s first return to Europe since London in 2012, after taking place in leading sports cities around the world in recent years, including Rio de Janeiro and Shanghai.
Among the sporting greats who have been named as winners of Laureus Awards since 2000 are Usain Bolt, Novak Djokovic, Michael Schumacher, Roger Federer, Serena Williams, Alex Ferguson, Lewis Hamilton, Rafael Nadal, Pelé, Steve Redgrave, Ronaldo, Kelly Slater, Shaun White, Yelena Isenbayeva and Zinedine Zidane.
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You can find a list of the Laureus World Sports Awards 2016 winners here
A bizarre summer hailstorm left a Mexican city buried in up to six feet of ice Sunday. The unusual weather event in Guadalajara –northwest of the capital of Mexico City – damaged homes and cars, but there were no reports of injuries.
Enrique Alfaro, the governor of Jalisco, tweeted about the government’s response to the freakish hailstorm, along with photos of ice tall enough to cover vehicles’ wheels. He was stunned by what he saw in Guadalajara, Jalisco’s capital, and suggested climate change may be the cause of the ice storm. “I was in the place to assess the situation and witnessed scenes I had never seen: hail more than a meter high, and then we wonder if climate change exists,” he tweeted in Spanish.
Alfaro said no was hurt and vowed to have the streets cleaned up as soon as possible and through coordination with the Mexican Army and municipal authorities of Guadalajara and Tlaquepaque. The state’s civil protection service said there were possible cases of hypothermia in three adults.Guadalajara, one of Mexico’s most populous cities, was experiencing temperatures around 88 degrees Fahrenheit in recent days. Alfaro said Guadalajara, which is located just north of Mexico City, received more than three feet of ice. However, in some places, there were up to two meters – or six feet – of ice early Sunday, Agence France Presse reported. About 200 homes have been damaged and dozens of vehicles swept away in the city and surrounding districts, according to the AFP. CBS News meteorologist Jeff Berardelli said he has never seen a hail accumulation quite like this before and called it “remarkable.” While referencing the satellite images below, he explained how this peculiar ice storm happened.”To a meteorologist the evidence of why this was such a powerful storm can be seen in this satellite cloud loop,” he said. “You can see a line of clouds, an atmospheric boundary of some sort, moving southward. The boundary could be a dividing line between dry and moist, warm and cool or simply a wind shift. Whatever it is, it seems to have ignited and/or helped feed the hail storm. The storm is feeding off warm, moist air to its north of which it has a seemingly endless supply partly because it’s the only thunderstorm cluster around so it can hog all the energy, it doesn’t have to share with other storm activity.” “This all lead to a tall, long-lasting storm redeveloping over the same area for an extended period of time leading to unprecedented hail piles,” he added.
The International Triathlon Union (ITU) have announced that the elite races at the 2016 Kitzbuehel ITU Triathlon World Cup have been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. However, the junior races will continue as planned, and will be organised with the time-trial format that was scheduled to debut at the elite races.
“Despite our best efforts to identify a solution, in the end we were unsuccessful. Therefore, we believe that it is in the best interest of all to cancel this year’s World Cup race as soon as possible to allow for Federations and athletes to change their race and travel plans. We do apologize for any inconvenience this causes, and hope to return as a host of ITU races in the future,” said Event Director Herwig Grabner.
“We are disappointed we will not be able to contest the World Cup race in Kitzbuehel this year, a city that has a storied history of hosting successful of ITU events. However, we remain committed to debuting new formats and will therefore introduce the time-trial format in the junior race so that we can explore how this format could be incorporated in future events,” said ITU President and IOC Member Marisol Casado.
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To date, the Kitzbuehel World Cup will not be replaced on the 2016 schedule.
American rapper A$AP Rocky entered a not guilty plea to an assault charge as his trial got underway Tuesday in Sweden. Two other members of his entourage were also facing charges in the high-profile legal case that has caught the attention of President Donald Trump and celebrities.
The trial of the recording artist and model, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, began Tuesday in Stockholm District Court. The court has also set aside Thursday and Friday for the case, but it was not clear whether the trial would go the full three days. Mayers’ mother was seen arriving at the court, and shortly after it began the performer’s lawyer submitted his plea of not guilty, claiming he was acting in self-defense.
Swedish prosecutors allege that the Grammy-nominated rapper and the two other suspects “deliberately, together and in agreement” attacked the alleged victim, Mustafa Jafari, in central Stockholm on June 30.The charges carry a maximum sentence of two years in prison. Mayers has been in custody since July 3 and has consistently said he acted in self-defense.Sweden defends justice system from Trump’s scornThe trial was being held in a secure courtroom “because of the large interest from the media and the public,” the Stockholm court said. No photographing or filming was permitted inside the courtroom.Prosecutors alleged in more than 500 pages of court documents that the three suspects beat and kicked Jafari while he was on the ground and that he was hit by parts of or a whole bottle.As CBS News correspondent Roxana Saberi reports, Rocky posted videos to his own Instagram account prior to his arrest, showing himself and other members of his entourage repeatedly telling two men, including Jafari, to leave him and his friends alone and to stop following them.But another video shows Rocky and thrown one of the men to the ground and then punch and kick him several times, along with other members of his group.Prosecutors have numerous photos of Jafari’s cuts, bruises and blood-stained clothes as part of their evidence. The rapper’s lawyer, Martin Persson, told Swedish public broadcaster SVT on Monday that he would present the court with new evidence, including showing that “no bottle has been used to hit or injure anyone” and that the violence used was “within the limits of the law.”
A lawyer for Jafari, Magnus Stromberg, told The Associated Press last Friday that the beating started when one of A$AP Rocky’s guards “grabbed him (Jafari) by the neck and dragged him away” and that Jafari didn’t provoke the assault.Friends in high placesMayers’ arrest prompted Mr. Trump to intervene on behalf of the jailed rapper and sparked an unusual diplomatic spat when Swedish prosecutors charged the 30-year-old artist last week.The case has also drawn the attention of American celebrities including Kim Kardashian West and Mayers’ fellow recording artists, Sean “Diddy” Combs and Justin Bieber, and spawned a #JusticeForRocky movement on social media.Stockholm University law lecturer Dennis Martinsson told CBS News’ Saberi that if Rocky is convicted, he’s likely to be released on probation or spend three to five months in prison, rather than anything near the maximum possible sentence of two years. Given the unusual Twitter intervention in the case by President Trump and other celebrities, including tweets from Mr. Trump suggesting that Rocky’s race might have played a role in the arrest, Saberi asked Martinsson whether he believed the rapper was getting a fair trial.”Yes, I’d say so,” the law expert said. “I’d even go so far to say that his case has been fast-tracked in a way,” he added, suggesting the country’s justice system had taken “the international, sort of, pressure” into account.Mr. Trump in one tweet called on Sweden to release Rocky on bail prior to the trial, but Martinsson reiterated that it would not have been legally possible as Sweden does not have a bail system.
A new global half distance championship triathlon event for professional and age group triathletes alike, organised by Challenge Family, is to take place in Samorin, Slovakia on June 3, 2017.
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Known as ‘The Championship’, the event will take place at the incredible x-bionic® sphere in Samorin, Slovakia. Jan Masek, CEO of x-bionic® sphere said: “ We are thrilled to host The Championship and are committed to providing triathletes from across the globe with a truly unforgettable experience at x-bionic® sphere.”
For professional athletes the event will carry a minimum €150,000 professional prize purse, and professional athletes will be able to qualify for The Championship via Challenge Family events worldwide.
Professional athletes who finish in the top five at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, or a top three finish in the 2016 World Triathlon Series end of season rankings, 2016 ITU Long Distance Championship, 2016 Ironman World Championship or 2016 Ironman 70.3 World Championship will also receive an invite. Challenge Samorin 2016 will carry double the qualifying slots for the event.
Professional athlete’s qualifying at non-Challenge Family events will be required to validate at a Challenge Family event within the qualifying period, which commences at Challenge Fuerteventura 2016 and concludes at Challenge Rimimi 2017.
Age group athletes will have the opportunity to qualify with a top five age group finish at any Challenge Family event worldwide during the qualification period. Top 3 teams in the male, female and mixed categories in relay events will also qualify at Challenge Family events.s
Three hundred loyalty slots are available to any age group athlete who participates in at least four Challenge Family events within the qualification period. Loyalty spots are awarded on a first-come-first-served basis for athletes who meet the minimum participation criteria. Loyalty slots are not dependent on an athlete’s race time or finish position.
“At Challenge Family we’re driven by the same thing that drives our athletes: the passion to push limits, to perform at our best and to enjoy what we do in style. The Championship embodies this and it is our goal to set the new standard in triathlon,” said Zibi Szlufcik, CEO of the Challenge Family.
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The Championship comprises of a 1.9km swim, 90km bike and 21.1km run and is to be an annual event.
Dark chocolate has similar performance benefits to beetroot and can give you an extra edge in your fitness training scientists from Kingston University have discovered.
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“Beetroot juice is rich in nitrates, which are converted to nitric oxide in the body. This dilates blood vessels and reduces oxygen consumption – allowing athletes to go further for longer,” explained postgraduate research student Rishikesh Kankesh Patel
The Kingston University team wanted to find out whether dark chocolate could provide a similar boost, as it contains a substance called epicatechin – a type of flavanol found in the cacao bean, that also increases nitric oxide production in the body.
After undergoing initial fitness tests to establish a baseline for comparison, a group of nine amateur cyclists were then split into two groups. The first group was asked to replace one of its normal daily snacks with 40g of a dark chocolate known to be rich in flavanols for a fortnight, while the other participants substituted 40g of white chocolate for one of their daily snacks as a control.
The effects of the athletes’ daily chocolate consumption were then measured in a series of cycling exercise tests in the sports performance laboratory. The cyclists’ heart rates and oxygen consumption levels were measured during moderate exercise and in time trials. After a seven-day interval, the groups then switched chocolate types and the two-week trial and subsequent exercise tests were repeated.
The study, which has now been published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, found that after eating dark chocolate, the riders used less oxygen when cycling at a moderate pace and also covered more distance in a two-minute flat-out time trial.
Mr Patel said the results opened the door for more research which could eventually lead to dark chocolate becoming a staple part of endurance athletes’ diets.
“Both dark chocolate and beetroot juice are known to increase nitric oxide, which is the major mechanism we believe is behind these results,” Patel said. “We found that people could effectively exercise for longer after eating dark chocolate –something that’s not been established before in this way.”
“We want to see whether the boost in performance is a short term effect – you eat a bar and within a day it works – or whether it takes slightly longer, which is what the initial research is showing,” Mr Patel said. “We are also investigating the optimal level of flavanols. At the moment there is not a lot of consistency in flavanol levels in commercially-available chocolate. Once we’ve found the optimal chocolate dose and duration, we’ll compare its effects to those of beetroot juice, and also test the influence of combining consumption of both, as they produce an increase in nitric oxide in slightly different ways.”
Sport analysis lecturer James Brouner, who is an ultra-distance runner in his spare time, said that the research suggested dark chocolate could offer particular benefits to endurance athletes.
“From a performance perspective, making an athlete more efficient can have major advantages in long duration steady-state exercise,” he said. “With so many athletes consuming beetroot juice to achieve this gain but complaining of the palatability, dark chocolate could have a similar effect but with the additional benefit of tasting good too.
“When performing endurance-based activity, being as economical as possible in energy provision is key to enhancing your performance. From our results, the consumption of dark chocolate has altered the participants’ response to the activity and therefore could enhance their endurance performance.”
Some of the world’s most acclaimed nutritionists, including Louise Burke of the Australian Institute of Sport and Team Sky’s James Morton, have joined forces to formulate sports-nutrition strategies for training in Olympic year.
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The authors also say there’s credible evidence that the following ergogenic aids improve strength and stamina: caffeine, creatine, sodium bicarbonate, beta-alanine and nitrates. The team highlights the emergence of vitamin D, too, showing that the science suggesting that vitamin D encourages muscle regeneration does add up.
Finally, the team looks at compounds such as epicatechin, nicotinamide riboside, resveratrol, beta-hydroxy beta-methylbutyrate, phosphatidic acid and ursolic acid that may also promote skeletal muscle adaptations to endurance and strength training, though studies of these compounds have largely been limited to rats.
>>> Dark chocolate found to improve endurance
Benefits of organic meet
It’s official: organic meat is better for you than non-organic. A team of 25 researchers undertook a meta-analysis examining how nutritional content varied between organic and non-organic red meats. Though the evidence wasn’t strong enough to verify differences in antioxidant and mineral content, it did show that organic meat contains 47% more omega-3 than the non-organic alternative. This is good news for triathletes, because this polyunsaturated fatty acid has been proven to improve recovery, reduce muscle soreness after exercise and even increase fat metabolism.
First it was claimed that beetroot (rich in nitrates) sent endurance through the roof, then it was labelled a memory enhancer. Now nitrates have been shown to improve neuromuscular function. A study from Ohio, USA, assessed isometric and dynamic contractions in 14 resistance-trained athletes before and after three days of nitrate supplementation. The nitrate hit resulted in higher mean peak electromyography amplitudes: electrical signals travelled that bit faster. So nitrate supplementation could enhance muscle activation, leading to greater power and speed.
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WTS Gold Coast victor and current leader of the WTS rankings, Britain’s Helen Jenkins, won’t be competing but her Rio team mates Non Stanford and Vicky Holland will be there, along with Jodie Stimpson, whose disappointing run in Australia ruled her out of a place on the British team. Holland won her first WTS race in Cape Town last year, and Stanford has a proven winning record at the sprint distance.
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Last year Holland finished ahead of Katie Zaferes (USA) and Olympic Champion, Nicola Spirig (SUI) in a thrilling tight finish exactly a year ago.
She said: “This was the race that gave me the confidence to believe I could aim for the top of the podium, it was quite a break through last year, so it’s great to be back. This year it’s a sprint rather than Olympic distance, and my first race of the season, so it’s quite different, but I’m looking forward to getting out there.”
The line up also includes Flora Duffy (BER), second on the WTS rankings thanks to her two fourth-place WTS finishes in Abu Dhabi and Gold Coast, who will be hopeful of a podium finish.
As one of the best cyclists in the field, in Gold Coast Duffy successfully led a breakaway of three away from the lead pack that allowed a healthy advantage going into the second transition zone. South Africa is a familiar setting for Duffy, as she trains down the road in Stellenbosch for much of the year, meaning Missing from the line up is Gwen Jorgensen
Full women’s start list
Meanwhile the question in the men’s race is can Mario Mola keep up his unbeatable run and make it three in a row at WTS Cape Town in South Africa this weekend? The South African city is offering up the first sprint-distance course of the season as the men vie for more valuable Olympic qualification points as they tackle a one-lap swim, five-lap bike and two-lap run.
Joining Mola is fellow Spaniard Fernando Alarza who joined Mola on the Gold Coast podium by capturing the silver in the final lap of the run. He also just missed the podium in Abu Dhabi with his fourth-place finish.
Hoping to beat Mola will be Britain’s Jonathan Brownlee, however he won’t be joined by his brother Alistair as still has not recovered from a virus and unfortunately won’t be able to defend his 2015 victory in Cape Town. Jonny will be joined by fellow Brit Adam Bowden.
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Full men’s start list
The women will get the 2016 Discovery World Triathlon Cape Town underway at 14:00 on Sunday April 24, while the men will follow at 16:30 local time. Follow all of the action live at triathlonlive.tv or follow us on Twitter.
Brit Non Stanford pulled off a stunning victory in the Cape Town leg of the World Triathlon Series 2016, putting down a marker ahead of the Rio Olympics and showing her return to full fitness is almost complete despite doubts before the race.
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Non Stanford and Vicky Holland secure spots for Rio
Although heavy storms greeted the athletes on their arrival into Cape Town, conditions were perfect for the race itself with temperatures of 20c and light winds. After her devastation at not been selected for the Olympic Games, 2014 WTS Cape Town winner Jodie Stimpson was racing purely to bolster her hopes of a strong position in the ITU series itself. Fellow Brits Vicky Holland, who won in Cape Town last year, and Non Stanford were looking to send a message to their opponents ahead of Rio having already qualified. The winner of WTS Gold Coast Helen Jenkins opted out of this race, as did current world champion Gwen Jorgensen.
As the athletes dived off the pontoon, Bermudan Flora Duffy and Carolina Routier quickly broke away from the pack, and Duffy broke away again to exit the water in a rapid 8min 55secs. Routier was unable to ride out with Duffy, who rode off solo and established almost a 30sec lead.
The rest of the ride followed the same pattern, with the chase pack not closing up any of the gap until the final 2km of the bike. Going out onto the run course 6secs in the lead, Duffy was quickly reigned in by four athletes, made up of all three Brit girls of Stimpson, Stanford and Holland as well as Anne Haug of Germany.
It then became a case of how long Duffy could hold on, having exerted herself more on the bike and not possessing the run speed of the three Brits. It was now looking like a potential 1-2-3 for the British athletes, with Haug looking to put a spanner in the works.
However it wasn’t so clear cut, as surprisingly Vicky Holland dropped off into 5th with Duffy holding 4th place going into the final 2km of the run. Non Stanford began to show her return to full fitness is nearly complete, and began to put the hammer down. Haug and Stimpson followed her every move, whilst Kirsten Kasper (USA) overtook Holland to move into 5th place. Stimpson then consolidated 2nd position, with Haug fading.
Stanford continued to pull clear and broke the tape in 59:49, whilst Stimpson held on for 2nd place and finished 7secs back. Flora Duffy capped off a remarkable performance by overtaking Haug, claiming her first podium this year after 4th place in the previous two rounds of the series.
It was Stanford’s first race of the WTS Series this year, and she expressed surprise at her victory in an interview with ITU Triathlon: “I’m not in my ideal race shape so came here to see how I’d get on, so it’s great to take the win. There’s more to come yet which is really exciting!”
Despite the disappointment of missing out on a place in the British Olympic squad, Stimpson showed immense mental strength to finish in 2nd place. She said: “I want to thank my coaches for putting up with me the last couple of weeks, as I haven’t been the most pleasant person to be around! But I will train hard and concentrate on this year’s series and try to finish as high up as I can.”