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Antioxidants increasingly have been praised for their benefits against disease and aging, but recent studies at Kansas State University show that they also can cause harm.

Researchers in K-State's Cardiorespiratory Exercise Laboratory have been studying how to improve oxygen delivery to the skeletal muscle during physical activity by using antioxidants, which are nutrients in foods that can prevent or slow the oxidative damage to the body. Their findings show that sometimes antioxidants can impair muscle function.

Antioxidant

"Antioxidant is one of those buzz words right now," said Steven Copp, a doctoral student in anatomy and physiology from Manhattan and a researcher in the lab. "Walking around grocery stores you see things advertised that are loaded with antioxidants.

I think what a lot of people don't realize is that the antioxidant and pro-oxidant balance is really delicate.

One of the things we've seen in our research is that you can't just give a larger dose of antioxidants and presume that there will be some sort of beneficial effect. In fact, you can actually make a problem worse."

David C. Poole and Timothy I. Musch, K-State professors from both the departments of kinesiology and anatomy and physiology, direct the Cardiorespiratory Exercise Laboratory, located in the College of Veterinary Medicine complex. Researchers in the lab study the physiology of physical activity in health and disease through animal models. Copp and Daniel Hirai, an anatomy and physiology doctoral student from Manhattan working in the lab, have conducted various studies associated with how muscles control blood flow and the effects of different doses and types of antioxidants.

Abnormalities in the circulatory system

Abnormalities in the circulatory system, such as those that result from aging or a disease like chronic heart failure, can impair oxygen delivery to the skeletal muscle and increase fatigability during physical activity, Copp said. The researchers are studying the effects antioxidants could have in the process.

"If you have a person trying to recover from a heart attack and you put them in cardiac rehab, when they walk on a treadmill they might say it's difficult," Poole said. "Their muscles get sore and stiff. We try to understand why the blood cells aren't flowing properly and why they can't get oxygen to the muscles, as happens in healthy individuals."

Some of the oxidants in our body, such as hydrogen peroxide, are helpful to increase blood flow.

Copp said there is a potential for antioxidants to reverse or partially reverse some of those changes that result from aging or disease. However, K-State's studies have shown that some of the oxidants in our body, such as hydrogen peroxide, are helpful to increase blood flow.

"We're now learning that if antioxidant therapy takes away hydrogen peroxide - or other naturally occurring vasodilators, which are compounds that help open blood vessels - you impair the body's ability to deliver oxygen to the muscle so that it doesn't work properly," Poole said.

Antioxidants can actually suppress key signaling mechanisms that are necessary for muscle to function effectively.

Poole said antioxidants are largely thought to produce better health, but their studies have shown that antioxidants can actually suppress key signaling mechanisms that are necessary for muscle to function effectively.

"It's really a cautionary note that before we start recommending people get more antioxidants, we need to understand more about how they function in physiological systems and circumstances like exercise," Poole said.

Mobility for advancing age and diseases like heart failure

Hirai said the researchers will continue to explore antioxidants and the effects of exercise training. Their studies are looking at how these can help individuals combat the decreased mobility and muscle function that comes with advancing age and diseases like heart failure.

"The research we do here is very mechanistic in nature, and down the road our aim is to take our findings and make recommendations for diseased and aging populations," Copp said.

The researchers have published their recent findings in several journals, including the Journal of Applied Physiology, Respiratory Physiology and Neurobiology, Microvascular Research, The American Journal of Physiology and Experimental Physiology.

The Cardiorespiratory Exercise Laboratory has been funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association and intramural awards from the College of Veterinary Medicine.

Show Me The Honey!

"Show me the honey" could very well be the mantra for athletes engaging in endurance sports.

"I recommend honey--honey should be part of a good refueling strategy," nationally renowned nutritionist and fitness expert Liz Applegate of the University of California, Davis, told beekeepers and scientists at the 31st annual Western Apicultural Society conference held recently in Healdsburg.

"I always have my athletes consume honey before and during strenuous exercise," said Applegate, director of sports nutrition at UC Davis and the nutritionist for the Oakland Raiders.

"Honey works," she said.

Applegate, a member of the UC Davis Department of Nutrition faculty, and a newly announced recipient of the 2009 UC Davis Distinguished Teaching Award, explained that the body manufactures and stores glycogen primarily in the liver (glycogen is found in lower concentrations in the muscles). During strenuous exercise, the liver depletes the short-term energy storage of glycogen in about two hours. "If you don't replenish it, it's like a runner hitting the wall or bonking," Applegate said.

"There's no glycogen in any food we eat," said Applegate, herself an athlete who lifts weights, runs and cycles.

Honey, a rich source of carbohydrates, "provides a quick source of energy," she said. It's easy to carry (in packets), easy to consume (no chewing), easy to digest and is easily assimilated. Plus, it tastes good, is inexpensive and easily obtainable, she noted.

Applegate outlined a "carbohydrate feeding scheme" for prolonged endurance events, such as marathon. The marathoner should drink an eight-ounce sport drink at mile 6; consume two tablespoons of honey at mile 12; consumer apple slices and an eight-ounce sport drink at mile 17; and an eight-ounce sport drink at mile 21, for a total of 115 grams of carbohydrates.

Basically, the long-endurance athlete should drink 1/2 to 3/4 cup every 15 to 20 minutes; consume 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrates every hour or 100 calories every half hour, and use water, sport drink, fitness waters, energy bars, carb gels and fruit, she said.

"Honey has a positive feel. There's a lot of potential in using honey."

However, Applegate said, there are few, if any, commercial honey-based sports drinks on the market. A few companies, such as Odwalla, sweeten their energy bars with honey. She encouraged her audience to come up with ideas and products for the athletes and others who want quick energy bursts.

"Some athletes eat rice with honey, as both are easy to digest," Applegate said.

Unlike most other sweeteners, honey contains small amounts of a wide array of vitamins, minerals, amino acids and antioxidants collected from the flowers that bees visit. The list includes niacin, riboflavin, pantothenic acid, calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium and zinc. Honey is also considered an effective antimicrobial agent, used to treat minor burns and scrapes and to soothe sore throats; and as a beauty agent, according to Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen, member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and the 2008-09 president of the Western Apicultural Society.

More than 300 different kinds of honey are found worldwide. The color, flavor and fragrance are closely linked to the bees' floral visits

Applegate, highly sought as a keynote speaker at industry, athletic and scientific meetings, serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism; is a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine; and a member of the Sports and Cardiovascular Nutritionists, a practice group of the American Dietetics Association. She also writes the popular "Fridge Wisdom" nutrition column for Runner's World magazine.

A graduate of UC Davis with two degrees, she holds a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry and a doctorate in nutrition science. Her enthusiasm and informal style make her undergraduate nutrition classes the nation's largest with enrollments exceeding 2,000 annually. She has as many as 650 in each class.

Eating just 2.5 ounces of broccoli sprouts or broccoli a day appears to not only reduce the risk of stomach ulcers, but also prevent stomach cancer, according to researchers from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.

Broccoli may be the biggest superfood of them all.

Previous research has already shown that this leafy, green vegetable helps reduce the risk for cancer of the esophagus, bladder, skin and lung, among others. Now we can add the stomach to that list. "I have to be careful about how enthusiastically I state the case," Jed W. Fahey, the faculty research associate at Hopkins whose research led to the study, told HealthDay News. "This was a small trial. But the evidence is all pointing toward broccoli or broccoli sprouts being able to prevent cancer in humans." Women whose diets are rich in these two (unlikely!) foods may have a lower risk of breast cancer.

What is the magic ingredient in broccoli? It's sulforaphane, which Fahey first described in 2002 as a potent antibiotic against Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium that is closely associated with the risk of stomach damage and gastric cancer. The Hopkins team chose to conduct their study in Japan because 90 percent of the population of that country is infected with H. pylori infection, compared with an infection rate of 25 percent to 30 percent in the United States. The bacterium, which is spread by person-to-person contact, is so high in Japan because of crowding and poor economic conditions.