Article Text
Statistics from Altmetric.com
September already! Can you believe it? Are you exhausted from the Olympics? Has it motivated your patients to be active? Interestingly, when Australians were interviewed before and just after the Sydney Games, there was an increase in people thinking about doing physical activity. Unfortunately, a year later physical activity levels had remained unchanged.1 Not to worry, the Olympics contribute to world peace. So we eagerly anticipate more peace during upcoming Olympics in Vancouver (2010), London (2012) and, we hope, Tromsø (2018).
NSAID AND SUPPLEMENT USE—WAY TOO HIGH?
But on to BJSM business and Barack. In this issue we learn that 10% of FIFA World Cup players took NSAIDs prior to every match (see p 725)! Would paracetamol/acetaminophen have been better choices? Or a placebo? As sports clinicians working with the “healthy elite athlete” is this OK? Futhermore, supplement use was rampant—the champion ingester took 7.4 different supplements before every game! Clearly this player couldn’t play in the Football Association for the Visually Impaired (http://www.favi.co.uk) because his stomach rattle would have him confused for the ball. This is a landmark paper not only for athlete health but also for the terrific collaboration among team physicians—Hippocrates would approve. Fortunately the supplement creatine does not produce liver or kidney damage (see p 731). Good thing. But the question remains—does it provide athletes any benefit? Pluim argued that there is no evidence for its use in tennis.2 Another expensive placebo?3 Share your thoughts on the BJSM Blog http://blogs.bmj.com/bjsm/.
OVERTRAINING/OVERREACHING—HEART RATE THE ANSWER?
The second cover page controversy relates to overtraining/overreaching. IOC Medical Commission Chairman, …
Linked Articles
- Original article
- Original article
- Review
- Editorial
- Original article
- Original article