A dietary supplement attenuates IL-6 and CRP after eccentric exercise in untrained males.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Flavonoids and Tocopherols, published as a randomized controlled trial.

This study investigated the effects of a dietary supplement on exercise-induced markers of cell damage and the inflammatory mediators C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin-6 (IL-6).

Markers of cell damage (creatine kinase (CK) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH)) and inflammation IL-6 and CRP were assessed at these time points in conjunction with subjective range of motion (ROM) and perceived pain measurements.

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were adults, men only.

The supplement contained mixed tocopherols, flavonoids, and docosahexaenoate.

Forty healthy, nonsmoking, untrained males (aged 18-35 yr) were randomly assigned to receive either the supplement (N = 20) or placebo (N = 20) during the 14-d experimental protocol.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Flavonoids and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received Flavonoids.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Flavonoids group a baseline to be compared against.

Blood samples were collected on day 0 (baseline), day 7 (eccentric exercise-induced injury), day 10, and day 14.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including C-Reactive Protein, Dietary Supplements, Docosahexaenoic Acids, Exercise, Flavonoids, Inflammation and Interleukin-6.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Flavonoids and Tocopherols.

Results are reported in around 5 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2003 (Medicine and science in sports and exercise), a journal based in United States.

More context: all human trials.