A new study reports that beer is an excellent recovery beverage for marathon runners. But you may not want to start a raucous celebration just yet. The beer was effective only if it was nonalcoholic.
Running a marathon is, of course, punishing to the body, causing muscle soreness and inflammation. Grueling exercise can also weaken the immune system, making athletes susceptible to colds and other ills in the weeks after the event. Some athletes, particularly in Europe, long had downed nonalcoholic beer during hard training, claiming that it helped them to recover, but no science existed to support the practice.
To study the matter, researchers at the Technical University of Munich approached healthy male runners, most in their early 40s, who were training for the Munich Marathon, and asked if they would — in the name of science — be willing to drink a considerable amount of beer. Two hundred seventy-seven men agreed, even when told that the beverage would be nonalcoholic. Only half of the group received the alcohol-free beer, however; the other half got a similarly flavored placebo. No one knew who was drinking what.
All of the runners downed a liter to a liter and a half — about two to three pints — of their assigned beverage every day,... continue reading
Article Link : Nonalcoholic Beer Aids Marathon Recovery
By Gretchen Reynolds
